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Source of debian
Thursday, November 29, 2007
What Does Free Mean? or What do you mean by Free Software?
Note: In February 1998 a group moved to replace the term "Free Software" with "Open Source Software". As will become clear in the discussion below, they both refer to essentially the same thing.
Many people new to free software find themselves confused because the word "free" in the term "free software" is not used the way they expect. To them free means "at no cost". An English dictionary lists almost twenty different meanings for "free". Only one of them is "at no cost". The rest refer to liberty and lack of constraint. When we speak of Free Software, we mean freedom, not price.
Software that is free only in the sense that you don't need to pay to use it is hardly free at all. You may be forbidden to pass it on, and you are almost certainly prevented from improving it. Software licensed at no cost is usually a weapon in a marketing campaign to promote a related product or to drive a smaller competitor out of business. There is no guarantee that it will stay free.
Truly free software is always free. Software that is placed in the public domain can be snapped up and put into non-free programs. Any improvements then made are lost to society. To stay free, software must be copyrighted and licensed.
To the uninitiated, either a piece of software is free or it isn't. Real life is much more complicated than that. To understand what kinds of things people are implying when they call software free we must take a little detour into the world of software licenses.
Copyrights are a method of protecting the rights of the creator of certain types of works. In most countries, software you write is automatically copyrighted. A license is the authors way of allowing use of their creation (software in this case), by others, in ways that are acceptable to them. It is up to the author to include a license which declares in what ways the software may be used. For a proper discussion of copyright see http://www.copyright.gov/. Source of debian
Note: In February 1998 a group moved to replace the term "Free Software" with "Open Source Software". As will become clear in the discussion below, they both refer to essentially the same thing.
Many people new to free software find themselves confused because the word "free" in the term "free software" is not used the way they expect. To them free means "at no cost". An English dictionary lists almost twenty different meanings for "free". Only one of them is "at no cost". The rest refer to liberty and lack of constraint. When we speak of Free Software, we mean freedom, not price.
Software that is free only in the sense that you don't need to pay to use it is hardly free at all. You may be forbidden to pass it on, and you are almost certainly prevented from improving it. Software licensed at no cost is usually a weapon in a marketing campaign to promote a related product or to drive a smaller competitor out of business. There is no guarantee that it will stay free.
Truly free software is always free. Software that is placed in the public domain can be snapped up and put into non-free programs. Any improvements then made are lost to society. To stay free, software must be copyrighted and licensed.
To the uninitiated, either a piece of software is free or it isn't. Real life is much more complicated than that. To understand what kinds of things people are implying when they call software free we must take a little detour into the world of software licenses.
Copyrights are a method of protecting the rights of the creator of certain types of works. In most countries, software you write is automatically copyrighted. A license is the authors way of allowing use of their creation (software in this case), by others, in ways that are acceptable to them. It is up to the author to include a license which declares in what ways the software may be used. For a proper discussion of copyright see http://www.copyright.gov/. Source of debian
computer latest os
What is Debian?
Debian is a free operating system (OS) for your computer. An operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your computer run. Debian uses the Linux kernel (the core of an operating system), but most of the basic OS tools come from the GNU project; hence the name GNU/Linux.
Debian GNU/Linux provides more than a pure OS: it comes with over 18733 packages, precompiled software bundled up in a nice format for easy installation on your machine.
Read more...
Getting Started
The latest stable release of Debian is 4.0. The last update to this release was made on August 15th, 2007. Read more about available versions of Debian.
If you'd like to start using Debian, you can easily obtain a copy, and then follow the installation instructions to install it.
If you're upgrading to the latest stable release from a previous version, please read the release notes before proceeding.
To get help in using or setting up Debian, see our documentation and support pages.
Users that speak languages other than English should check the international section.
People who use systems other than Intel x86 should check the ports section.
News
[17 Aug 2007] Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 updated[25 Apr 2007] Debian participates in Google's Summer of Code[08 Apr 2007] Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 released[07 Apr 2007] Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 updated[18 Feb 2007] Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 updated[10 Jan 2007] Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 archived
For older news items see the News Page. If you would like to receive mail whenever new Debian news comes out, subscribe to the debian-announce mailing list.
Security Advisories
[29 Nov 2007] DSA-1409 samba - several vulnerabilities [27 Nov 2007] DSA-1416 tk8.3 - buffer overflow [27 Nov 2007] DSA-1415 tk8.4 - buffer overflow [27 Nov 2007] DSA-1414 wireshark - several vulnerabilities [26 Nov 2007] DSA-1413 mysql - multiple vulnerabilities [24 Nov 2007] DSA-1412 ruby1.9 - programming error [24 Nov 2007] DSA-1411 libopenssl-ruby - programming error [24 Nov 2007] DSA-1410 ruby1.8 - programming error [21 Nov 2007] DSA-1408 kdegraphics - buffer overflow [18 Nov 2007] DSA-1407 cupsys - buffer overflow
For older security advisories see the Security Page. If you would like to receive security advisories as soon as they're announced, subscribe to the debian-security-announce mailing list.
Debian is a free operating system (OS) for your computer. An operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your computer run. Debian uses the Linux kernel (the core of an operating system), but most of the basic OS tools come from the GNU project; hence the name GNU/Linux.
Debian GNU/Linux provides more than a pure OS: it comes with over 18733 packages, precompiled software bundled up in a nice format for easy installation on your machine.
Read more...
Getting Started
The latest stable release of Debian is 4.0. The last update to this release was made on August 15th, 2007. Read more about available versions of Debian.
If you'd like to start using Debian, you can easily obtain a copy, and then follow the installation instructions to install it.
If you're upgrading to the latest stable release from a previous version, please read the release notes before proceeding.
To get help in using or setting up Debian, see our documentation and support pages.
Users that speak languages other than English should check the international section.
People who use systems other than Intel x86 should check the ports section.
News
[17 Aug 2007] Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 updated[25 Apr 2007] Debian participates in Google's Summer of Code[08 Apr 2007] Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 released[07 Apr 2007] Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 updated[18 Feb 2007] Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 updated[10 Jan 2007] Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 archived
For older news items see the News Page. If you would like to receive mail whenever new Debian news comes out, subscribe to the debian-announce mailing list.
Security Advisories
[29 Nov 2007] DSA-1409 samba - several vulnerabilities [27 Nov 2007] DSA-1416 tk8.3 - buffer overflow [27 Nov 2007] DSA-1415 tk8.4 - buffer overflow [27 Nov 2007] DSA-1414 wireshark - several vulnerabilities [26 Nov 2007] DSA-1413 mysql - multiple vulnerabilities [24 Nov 2007] DSA-1412 ruby1.9 - programming error [24 Nov 2007] DSA-1411 libopenssl-ruby - programming error [24 Nov 2007] DSA-1410 ruby1.8 - programming error [21 Nov 2007] DSA-1408 kdegraphics - buffer overflow [18 Nov 2007] DSA-1407 cupsys - buffer overflow
For older security advisories see the Security Page. If you would like to receive security advisories as soon as they're announced, subscribe to the debian-security-announce mailing list.
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