Free Software
the software “they” don’t want you to know about

Corporate software is made by large corporations, for the purpose of making money. The source code is kept secret, which means that only people within the corporation are allowed to look at how the program works, and modify it to make it work better.

Microsoft has a de facto monopoly in many area of software, so many people feel they have no choice but to use Microsoft. Microsoft can write bloated, bug-ridden code, sell us applications that invade our privacy by sending information from our computer over the Internet without telling us, jack up prices, and watch profits soar.

Does it matter if you use Microsoft Word or an ethical alternative, such as OpenOffice? “I got my copy for free,” you say, “I’m not supporting Microsoft.” Except that you are; simply by using the program you promote it to others. And in the near future it may get much harder to get pirated software. Microsoft and other corporations are putting a lot of money into finding ways to control and limit our use of their software, such as Product Activation Software, which makes it so a program can only be installed on one computer. Instead of banking on our continued ability to steal shitty software from shitty corporations, it would be better to switch to Free Software.

Free Software is not just free in price, the source code is freely available for anyone to examine and alter. Free Software applications often have hundreds of authors all around the world, which often means that bug fixes and improvements occur rapidly. Free Software applications are often lighter on memory than the corporate versions, which means that older computers will work better and last longer. Free Software is cooperative- the people who write the programs also use the programs, so they are written according to what people need, not according to what will make money.

Who uses Free Software?
Most of the Internet runs on Apache, a Free Software web server. Linux is widely considered to be more stable and more secure than Windows, and is used by many businesses. Many states don’t use corporate software because they see it as insecure. Governments of countries such as India, Peru, China, Venezuaela, and South Africa promote Free Software because with Free Software poorer countries can develop their own applications and build up a local software industry rather than becoming a nation of “cyber-coolies”: doing low-level IT work to support Microsoft’s proprietary software, and watching the money flow out of the country and into a rich western corporation.

Where do I get this wonderful software?
Three popular free programs for Windows are:

OpenOffice (www.OpenOffice.org)
A text editor that replaces Microsoft Office
Mozilla (www.mozilla.org)
A web browser that replaces Internet Explorer or Netscape
the GIMP (www.gimp.org)
An image editor similar to photoshop

Loads more Free Software for Windows: www.thegoldenear.org

The next step is to get rid of Windows entirely and switch to Linux, a Free operating system Linux requires some learning to get started, although it’s getting easier all the time.
www.linux-mandrake.com
www.debian.org

Ethical/Non-corporate E-mail
Stop supporting large corporations by using hotmail or yahoo. Check these out instead: www.riseup.net, www.cyber-rights.net, www.greennet.net