User:Leighblackall/Free and Open Source Software

What is free software?

 * Wikipedia article for free software: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software
 * The Free Software Foundation: http://www.fsf.org

Examples of free software

 * Computer operating system: Ubuntu
 * Office suite: Open Office
 * Image editing: GIMP
 * Audio editing: Audacity
 * Video editing: Open Movie Editor
 * 3D Animation: Blender
 * Graphics: Inkscape
 * Layout: Scribus
 * Blogging: Wordpress
 * Reference materials: Wikimedia Foundation

Examples of things made with free software

 * Video: Elephants Dream. Made with Blender
 * Images: GIMP splash pages. Images designed for GIMP
 * Content: The Internet Archive. Old movies, new music, extinct games, scanned texts, The Way Back Machine, so much more!

Other reasons to use free software?

 * Netbooks and cheap computing
 * Format standards
 * The unsustainability of software designed to become redundent
 * Socially networked
 * Free and can give freedom