It can be argued that the current free-software movement is the most important

thing happening in computing today. We are in the midst of a major shift from

all software being proprietary and closely held by individual companies to a large

body of software that can be freely acquired and used by anyone for any purpose.

Free software now includes not only programming language compilers and linkers,

but numerous utilities, graphical user interface environments, and even entire

operating systems.-It can be argued that the current free-software movement is the most importantthing happening in computing today. We are in the midst of a major shift fromall software being proprietary and closely held by individual companies to a largebody of software that can be freely acquired and used by anyone for any purpose.Free software now includes not only programming language compilers and linkers, but numerous utilities, graphical user interface environments, and even entireoperating systems.