In 1985, Richard Stallman, a computer programmer, released “The GNU Manifesto,” in which he proclaimed a golden rule: One must share computer programs. Software vendors required him to agree to license agreements that forbade sharing programs with others, but he refused to “break solidarity” with other computer users whom he assumed also wanted to use free software. Many people are surprised to hear that Stallman’s free software dream has been realized. This paper makes the case that using only free software has considerable economic, technical, political, pedagogical and moral advantages — and surprisingly few frustrations. If you are a teacher, and especially if you train teachers, you should be aware that there are Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS) applications for common classroom uses.
F/OSS is the foundation of the Internet. The BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain) name server that maps domain names to Internet Protocol (IP) numbers, the Apache Web server that serves most Web sites, the Linux kernel that drives Google and Amazon, and the MediaWiki software that powers Wikipedia are all free for anyone to use, change and redistribute.
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