Free and Open Source Software, also F/OSS or FOSS, is software which is liberally licensed to grant the right of users to study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code. F/OSS is generally synonymous with free software and open source software, and describes the same licenses, culture, and development models. Free software, as defined by the Free Software Foundation, is software which can be used, copied, studied, modified and redistributed without restriction. ... ...

Examples

Some examples of FOSS software include: the Linux kernel, GNOME Desktop, and FreeBSD. Tux is the official Linux mascot. ... The GNOME project is an international effort to create an easy-to-use computer desktop environment built entirely from software considered free by the Free Software Foundation. ... FreeBSD is a Unix-like free software operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) branch through 386BSD and 4. ...

Licenses

The most well known and popular F/OSS licenses include: GNU General Public License (GPL), GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), BSD license, Apache License, MIT License and Mozilla Public License. The GNU logo The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is the most popular free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. ... GNU logo The GNU Lesser General Public License (formerly the GNU Library General Public License) is an FSF approved free software license designed as a compromise between the GNU General Public License and simple permissive licenses such as the BSD license and the MIT License. ... The BSD license is an acronym for the Berkeley Software Distribution license agreement, and is one of the most widely used licenses for free software (a subset of open source software). ... The Apache License (Apache Software License previous to version 2. ... The MIT License, originated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a license for the use of certain types of computer software. ... In computing, the Mozilla Public License is an open source and free software license. ...

There are a number of endorsed F/OSS definitions, and related lists of licenses. The above licenses are approved by all definitions.

F/OSS definitions and guidelines:

• Open Source Definition, from the Open Source Initiative
• Free software definition, from the Free Software Foundation
• Debian Free Software Guidelines

Lists of licenses: The Open Source Definition is used by the Open Source Initiative to determine whether or not a software license can be considered open source. ... The Open Source Initiative is an organization dedicated to promoting open source software. ... Generally speaking, free software license is a phrase used by the free software movement to mean any software license that meets the free software definition of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). ... The Free Software Foundation logo The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a non-profit organization founded in October 1985 by Richard Stallman to support the free software movement (free as in freedom), and in particular the GNU project. ... The Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) are a set of guidelines that the Debian Project uses to determine whether a software license is free software license, which in turn is used to determine whether a piece of software can be included in the main, free software distribution of Debian. ...

• OSI approved licenses
• The Free Software Foundation's list of free and unfree licenses

An open-source license is a copyright license for computer software that makes the source code available under terms that allow for modification and redistribution without having to pay the original author. ...

Culture

The F/OSS culture and F/OSS community stem from hacker culture. Open Source Culture (OSC) is a term that derives from open source software and the open source movement. ... The open source movement is an offshoot of the free software movement that advocates open-source software as an alternative label for free software, primarily on pragmatic rather than philosophical grounds. ... The hacker culture is the voluntary subculture which first developed in the 1960s among hackers working on early minicomputers in academic computer science environments. ...

See also

• List of disputed F/OSS terminology
• Free/Libre/Open-Source Software