How does free software compete with commercial software ?
How do the Indians of North America live ?
Is the new economy really new ?
Successes and future
A few famous successes
On top of Linux, there are other famous free software :
- Netscape Navigator : the famous web browser which is available on many operating systems;
- GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) : a touch up software that is often compared to PhotoShop;
- Emacs : a text editor which is known for having more than one thousand features;
- Perl : a script language used a lot to create dynamic web pages;
- KDE : a desktop environment based on the graphic library QT;
- GNOME : another desktop environment based on the graphic library GTK+;
- Apache : a web server used by more than 50% of web sites.
The danger of the software patents
The Open Source mouvement becomes popular : more and more firms make or distribute free software. The free spirit keep attracting developpers. But this trend could be stop. The software patents, which are very used in the United States, are ready to be accepted by the European Union. Big firms deposit patents for any algorithms or any techniques, keeping hackers from using these. The software patents are a real danger for free software and small firms. Project like Linux should not continue to be developped. If you have understood the benefits of free software, please, sign the petition against the software patents.
Author : Julien L.
Last update : June 2005