Free Software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech”, not as in “free beer”.

Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it means that the program's users have the four essential freedoms:

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
• The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms.



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 Open Source Software
The "Open Source Software" is computer software available in source code form, for which the source code and certain other rights covered by copyright (Copyright) provided under a license that permits users to study, change and improve the software.

The terms of the Open Source Software and the Free Software are different for software that comes with certain rights and freedoms for the user.

We could say that they describe two different approaches and philosophies of free software. Both describe a software which is free from licensing restrictions and can be used, copied, studied, modified and redistributed without restriction.

Many believe that the "Open Source" is a software development methodology and the "Free Software" is a social movement.

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