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I don't know why but it pissed me off so much that they called gimp "freeware"
(www.tomshardware.com)
this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
193 points (91.4% liked)
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FOSS is always Freeware, but Freeware isn't always FOSS. Freeware don't mean other thing that the soft is free to use, nothing more.
Can someone translate this into English for me
FOSS is free and open source software, which is free to use and it's source code is disclosed and allowed to used to variable extend, often (definitely not always) owned by private people or non profit organizations. "Just" freeware is usually used for proprietory software, which is free to use, but undisclosed source, so nobody can look under the hood and see what it actually does.
"Free" in free software refers to freedoms, not price.
"Free" in "freeware" refers to price, not freedom.
The two are not at all synonymous although typically most free software is also freeware.