Why Free Software Matters

Today, much of the software we use is proprietary rather than free software. Many companies are trying to take away or limit your freedom in ways we find unacceptable. This text talks about why this is a problem, and what we intend to do about it.

What do we mean by Free Software?

When we talk about free software, we refer to freedom, not price. Back in the days when software was distributed on physical media like CD-ROMs, it was common to see physical copies of free software being sold for a price. Even though this might seem "odd" and that someone is "profiting off of other people's work", it's actually perfectly in line with the philosophy of free software.

The four basic freedoms

The list above comes from this page (gnu.org). In addition to the above, we would like to add a fifth, basic freedom:

The above point is important in this day and age when so-called "cloud" and "SaaS" solutions have become widespread. Previously, even for non-free programs that you had purchased, you, as an individual or organization, had autonomy over how and when you would install the program. You were in charge of when updates would be applied, and you were in charge of whether you would continue using the program or not. The vendor changes the pricing model in an unreasonable way? No problemo, you can just stay on the old version of the program that you have paid for. You were in charge and no-one could stop you from running an old, outdated, perhaps buggy and unsupported program for as long as you wished. It was your decision, and no-one else's.

The advent of SaaS solutions (i.e. "fake software")

In the time of SaaS software, this has now changed. The "software provider" can, if they decide to do it, shut down the "software". We write "software" in quotation marks here, because GNU/FSF raises a valid concern when they speak about Service as a Software Substitute. Such a solution is more of a "service" than ordinary software in the traditional sense of the word, with much less freedom for you as a user.

"You are exaggerating the dangers here. How often does this happen in reality?", one might say to challenge the statements above. Really? Just go look at the Killed by Google page for quite a long (307 at the time of writing) list of services and products that have been, or are planned to be, discontinued by Google.

Technically, the same could happen any day for any of the services you might currently use and appreciate (Gmail, Google Docs, Google Maps, Google Search). Now, let's be honest and state that it's of course unlikely that the more successful, popular and profitable services will be killed. But it's still a fact that you are not in control over your own computing when you use and make yourself reliant on one or more of these SaaS/cloud-based solutions.

Talking about "fake software" may seem like harsh words. Are we suggesting that SaaS solutions are to be unconditionally avoided altogether? Not necessarily; we work with clients on their SaaS-based products ourselves. However, as a matter of principle we should remember that software that is only available as SaaS or "cloud-based" means less power to its users and more power to the companies behind it.

Protection from "rug pulls"

There's another aspect worth pointing out here: with free software, you have protection from so-called "rug pulls" — where the provider changes the license to something less free, perhaps forcing you into purchasing commercial licenses to keep using the software that your own software system depends on.

This is not just a theoretical discussion. It has happened both with MongoDB (2018) and Redis (2024) previously. MongoDB remains under this license to this day, but Redis luckily partially retracted (2025) and added AGPLv3 to their list of licenses.

So, how are you protected from this? With free software licenses, because of how software licensing works, you can just remain on the old version of the software. There is nothing "forcing" you (apart from possibly technical developments, new operating system versions etc.) to upgrade to the new version. Once released under a free software license, that particular version remains free forever. Again, you as a user have control over your own computing.

Free Software licenses

Getting back to the four/five freedoms above, there are various free software licenses that comply with the freedoms listed above. They typically differ in areas like "can you distribute modified versions of the program under another (possibly non-free) license" and similar, but all free software licenses comply with the basic freedoms listed above.

Some licenses are more permissive than others, and some (typically the GNU licenses, but also some others) try to be more restrictive with "derivative works", essentially forcing all derivatives to remain under the same free license. These different licensing models suit different types of programs.

How does Xorway fit into all this?

Good question; let's get back to where we are, namely the Xorway web page. Xorway Solutions have made a decision that all software we develop ourselves will be free software. This web page is no exception. Click the link at the bottom of the page to find the full sources to this web site (AGPLv3). You may use it in part or in full and do pretty much whatever you want with it, as long as you share your modifications with everyone else under the same terms under which you received it (the so-called "reciprocity" part of the GNU licenses — everyone else will have the same rights as you have).

This does not apply to software that we do not own the IP (intellectual property) rights to ourselves; for example, for consulting projects that we work on. But for everything we have the full authority over, a free software license will be used.

There is also a bigger thing coming than this web page, namely the Perlang project. You can read more about it on the dedicated Perlang page, but this page touches it briefly from a Free Software perspective.

Perlang

Perlang is a project to create a new programming language that is "concurrently safe, fast and fun", suited for both system-oriented and more application- and scripting-oriented programming. It is supported by Xorway, in terms of that we fund its hosting infrastructure and that we put development time into the project. Perlang is licensed under the LGPLv2.1 and MIT licenses (different licenses for different parts of the system). This ensures that Perlang will remain free software for all its users, forever.

There is no such thing as a free lunch

Remember that we mentioned earlier that free software is about freedom, not price? Even though free software respects our freedoms, it isn't "free" in the sense that it doesn't cost money, time and effort to produce. We all need to have food on the table, clothing and housing. For free software projects, this can be a challenge since we don't "force" the user to pay before they can access the software. Anyone can typically download free software "for free", so where does the money come from?

Various companies have tried to solve this in different ways, by selling value-added offerings on top of free software, or going the "open core" approach where some parts of the system are free software and others are non-free. For the Xorway projects, we are trying a different approach. You can read more on the Perlang page if you are interested.