The Free Software Foundation has defined Four Freedoms related to software. These freedoms apply to users of software, not necessarily developers. In the view of the FSF, these freedoms are ethical in nature, so much so that they argue that software which violates these freedoms is unethical.

Programs and services are different kinds of entities. A program is a work that you can execute; a service is an activity that you might interact with. For programs, we make a distinction between free and nonfree (proprietary). More precisely, this distinction applies to a program that you have a copy of: either you have the four freedoms for your copy or you don't.

I was reading an article about Freesoftware adoption and it noted that the freedoms afforded by the GNU Gpl were written largely for developers not end users. So I figured I would take a shot at positing the four freedoms to general users.

« This is a response to A balance of freedoms. "Value your freedom, or you will lose it, teaches history. "Don't bother us with politics," respond those who don't want to learn." - RMS ... » (Submitted by aboutblank on fsdaily.com - Free Software News)

Everybody's seen redirection in bash commands, that's pretty common, but bash also allows you to define redirections when you define functions. This causes the redirections to be evaluated/executed whenever the function is called. This feature doesn't really give you any new features, just another way to express existing features.

"...The GNU Free Documentation License is a clever piece of work: rather than using copyright law to prohibit you from using works released under it, it uses copyright law to guarantee that you will always be free to use, modify, redistribute and study works released under it.

Member of the European Parliament, Amelia Andersdotter, wants public administrations to consider software freedom as one of the reasons to select new ICT solutions. Authorities should base their choice at least partially on the freedoms the software gives to their citizens, enterprises, authorities and schools.

A lengthy debate that began with a suggestion to dual license the Linux kernel under the GPLv2 and the GPLv3 [story] continues on the Linux Kernel Mailing List. Throughout the ongoing thread Linux creator Linus Torvalds has spoken out on the GPLv2, the upcoming GPLv3, the BSD license, Tivo, the Free Software Foundation, and much more.

Free Software Foundation Europe is asking people what they can do in 2009 to improve things for themselves and others in the sphere of software freedoms. The best way is to join the successful Fellowship programme, through which Fellows work to support software freedoms - and have fun doing it! Have a look at the site for more reasons to join!