A note on Information and Technology Freedom

Freedom in the IT sectors has always meant how convenient any part of it is for the people/ programs who use it. A free program is not only free of cost but a good free program may contain one or more of the following features. A good free program may be

• Free of cost: People don't have to buy such a program. It is available for them totally free of cost. They may download it, take it from a friend and even re-distribute it. The program manufacturer does not cost any fee to do any of the above mentioned task.


• Easy Availability: A good free program shall be available easily. Whether from the Internet, from a CD/DVD, in the from of easily available transportable files, on user networks etc.


• Redistribution: There shall not be any license protecting the rights of use and distribution of such a program. Anyone who uses such program shall be free to use it and redistribute it. Also, modify it in some cases.


• Open Source Code: There must be a source code governing the program. It shall be distributed freely and anyone shall be free to make use of it. It should be in a simple and easy to understand form, and should be original in every sense.


• Modifiable Source: Open source does not only mean that the source code of the program is available freely, but it also means that the code shall be modified by anyone and everyone according to their needs and satisfaction. People shall be free to give their suggestions and comments on the code and the programmers shall improve the program version by version. An open source software shall always be technically progressing.


• No discrimination against any sect: There shall not be any discrimination against any individual, group, sect, caste or in any other manner. The license should be the same for all who use the program.

A program which is free as well as open source is termed as a FLOSS.

Floss stands for Free Libre and Open Source Software. Open-source software is software whose source code is published and made available to the public, enabling anyone to copy, modify and redistribute the source code without paying royalties or fees. Open source code evolves through community cooperation. These communities are composed of individual programmers as well as very large companies. Examples of open-source software products are:

Programming languages
PHP - Scripting language suited for the web
Python - General purpose programming language

Operating systems

Ubuntu - a popular open-source computer operating system, and a form of Linux.
GNU Project  sufficient body of free software”
Linux  operating system kernel based on Unix
NetBSD  operating system derived from Unix
OpenBSD  operating system derived from Unix
FreeBSD” operating system derived from Unix
OpenSolaris  Unix Operating System from Sun Microsystems
Symbian  real-time mobile operating system

Servers
Apache  HTTP web server
Tomcat web server  web container
MediaWiki  wiki server software, the software that runs Wikipedia
Alfresco  content management system
RenovatioCMS  content management system
Joomla  content management system
Drupal content management system
TYPO3  content management system
WordPress blog software
MongoDB  document-oriented, non-relational database
Eclipse  software development environment comprising an integrated development environment (IDE)
Moodle  course management system or virtual learning environment
openSIS  open source Student Information System

Client software
osCommerce  ecommerce
PeaZip  File archiver
NASA World Wind  virtual globe, geobrowser
Mozilla Firefox web browser
Mozilla Thunderbird  e-mail client
OpenOffice.org  office suite
Stockfish  chess engine series, considered to be one of the strongest chess programs in the world
7-Zip  File archiver

Source: Wikipedia

The Open Source technology has become a boon for the IT world. Thousands of innovations happen everyday because of the same.

We wish this to continue the same way.