Otherwise, it is nonfree. While we can distinguish various nonfree distribution schemes in terms of how far they fall short of being free, we consider them all equally unethical.
In any given scenario, these freedoms must apply to whatever code we plan to make use of, or lead others to make use of. For instance, consider a program A which automatically launches a program B to handle some cases. If we plan to distribute A as it stands, that implies users will need B, so we need to judge whether both A and B are free. However, if we plan to modify A so that it doesn't use B, only A needs to be free; B is not pertinent to that plan.
This policy is of fundamental importance—without this, free software could not achieve its aims. We want to invite everyone to use the GNU system, including businesses and their workers.
That requires allowing commercial use. We hope that free replacement programs will supplant comparable proprietary programs, but they can't do that if businesses are forbidden to use them. We want commercial products that contain software to include the GNU system, and that would constitute commercial distribution for a price.
Commercial development of free software is no longer unusual; such free commercial software is very important. Paid, professional support for free software fills an important need.
Thus, to exclude commercial use, commercial development or commercial distribution would hobble the free software community and obstruct its path to success. We must conclude that a program licensed with such restrictions does not qualify as free software. A free program must offer the four freedoms to any would-be user that obtains a copy of the software, who has complied thus far with the conditions of the free license covering the software in any previous distribution of it.
Putting some of the freedoms off limits to some users, or requiring that users pay, in money or in kind, to exercise them, is tantamount to not granting the freedoms in question, and thus renders the program nonfree. In the rest of this article we explain more precisely how far the various freedoms need to extend, on various issues, in order for a program to be free.
The freedom to run the program means the freedom for any kind of person or organization to use it on any kind of computer system, for any kind of overall job and purpose, without being required to communicate about it with the developer or any other specific entity. In this freedom, it is the user's purpose that matters, not the developer's purpose; you as a user are free to run the program for your purposes, and if you distribute it to someone else, she is then free to run it for her purposes, but you are not entitled to impose your purposes on her.
The freedom to run the program as you wish means that you are not forbidden or stopped from making it run. This has nothing to do with what functionality the program has, whether it is technically capable of functioning in any given environment, or whether it is useful for any particular computing activity. For example, if the code arbitrarily rejects certain meaningful inputs—or even fails unconditionally—that may make the program less useful, perhaps even totally useless, but it does not deny users the freedom to run the program, so it does not conflict with freedom 0.
If the program is free, the users can overcome the loss of usefulness, because freedoms 1 and 3 permit users and communities to make and distribute modified versions without the arbitrary nuisance code. In order for freedoms 1 and 3 the freedom to make changes and the freedom to publish the changed versions to be meaningful, you need to have access to the source code of the program.
Therefore, accessibility of source code is a necessary condition for free software. Freedom 1 includes the freedom to use your changed version in place of the original.
These binaries are not free software even if the source code they are compiled from is free. Your membership will help us pave a way to UserFreedom. Read more. The "Respects Your Freedom" certification program encourages the creation and sale of hardware that will do as much as possible to respect your freedom and your privacy, and will ensure that you have control over your device.
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