Outline of free software

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to free software and the free software movement:

Free software – software which can be run, studied, examined, modified, and redistributed freely (without any cost). This type of software, which was given its name in 1983, has also come to be known as "open-source software", "software libre", "FOSS", and "FLOSS". The term "Free" refers to it being unfettered, rather than being free of charge.

Large free software projects

Free software by type

Free and open-source software packages (by type)

Comparison of free geophysics software
Comparison of free off-line GPS software
Comparison of free software for audio
Free statistical software
Free television software
Free web application software

Free software products

List of free software project directories
List of formerly proprietary software
List of Linux distributions
- List of Ubuntu-based distributions
List of open source software packages
- Comparison of open source wireless drivers
- List of open source statistical packages
- List of trademarked open source software
List of free and open-source Android applications
List of free and open-source software packages
List of free software web applications

Operating system families

Comparison of open-source operating systems
AROS
BSD
Darwin
eCos
FreeDOS
GNU
Haiku
Inferno
Linux
Mach
MINIX
OpenSolaris
Plan 9
ReactOS

Open-source software development products

Basic For Qt
Eclipse
F#
Free Pascal
FreeBASIC
Gambas
GCC
Java
LLVM
Lua
NetBeans
Open64
Perl
PHP
Python
ROSE
Ruby
Tcl
TypeScript

Free software movement

Alternative terms for free software
Debian Social Contract
Free-software licence
Gratis versus Libre
Open source
- Open-source definition
- Open-source software
- Open-source-software movement
- Comparison of open source and closed source
- Comparison of open-source software hosting facilities
Open standard
Long-term support
Software Package Data Exchange

Challenges

Proprietary software
Proprietary device driver ("binary blobs")
Free and open-source graphics device driver
Proprietary firmware
Secure boot
Hardware restrictions
Digital rights management
License proliferation
Software patents and free software
SCO–Linux controversies
Mozilla software rebranded by Debian
Open-source software security
Trusted Computing

Free software licenses

Specific licenses

License types and standards

Comparison of free and open-source software licenses
Contributor License Agreement
Copyleft
Debian Free Software Guidelines
Definition of Free Cultural Works
Free license
The Free Software Definition
The Open Source Definition
Open-source license
Permissive free software licence
Public domain
Viral license

History of the free software movement

Free Software Foundation
SCO-Linux controversies
Open Source Initiative
History of GNU
History of Haiku
History of Linux
History of the Linux kernel
Mozilla
- History of Mozilla Application Suite
- History of Firefox
- History of Mozilla Thunderbird
Timeline of free and open-source software

Events

List of free-software events

Organizations

.NET Foundation
Android Open Source Project
Apache Software Foundation
Blender Foundation
The Document Foundation
Eclipse Foundation
F Sharp Software Foundation
Free Software Foundation
- Free Software Foundation Europe
- Free Software Foundation of India
- Free Software Foundation Latin America
FreeBSD Foundation
freedesktop.org
Free Software Movement of India
GNOME Foundation
GNU Project
Google Code
KDE e.V.
Linux Foundation
Mozilla Foundation
Open Knowledge Foundation
Open Source Geospatial Foundation
Open Source Initiative
Outercurve Foundation
Software Freedom Conservancy
SourceForge
Symbian Foundation
X.Org Foundation
Xiph.Org Foundation
XMPP Standards Foundation