Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) Movement
The development of Free/Open source software is based on the principles of free exchange of information and open collaboration. Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) movement is a social movement against the proprietary software which is sold as commodity. The movement started to form when sharing of software came in conflict with the proprietary software. Initially, the hacker culture of US and academia shared the philosophy of FOSS movement. The formal movement began when Richard Stallman launched the GNU project in 1983. After two years, he established the Free Software Foundation to support the movement. The purpose of FOSS movement was to obtain liberties of software users so that they can study and change, improve and redistribute the software. the Free Software Foundation(FSF) philosophy and the Open Source Initiative (OSI) philosophy are two distinctive and major philosophies under FOSS.
Several actions have been taking place under FOSS movement. One of the actions is writing and spreading free software. Development of free software and rejection of proprietary software are two main core works of this action. Raising awareness about the freedom of software is another major actions of FOSS movement. The core works of this action is to inform people who do not know about the freedom of free software by holding public speaking and by hosting stalls at software related conference. Ethical equality is another major action of FOSS movement where GNU associates provide cooperative environment for local and global communities.
The FOSS movement is moving forward. A very few countries including United States have been taking efforts to pass the legislation to use of free software by the government agencies.