Freedom [noun]
~ (of sth) the right to do or say what you want without anyone stopping you.
Thus says the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary. Freedom is the state of not being bound by any restrictions and living life in one's own terms.
With freedom comes empowerment. If one is free to do something, then s/he has the authority and this authority empowers the users.
Apparently, we all live in a free world. But, as a matter of fact, we are not. It won't be much of an exaggeration to say that in this world of today, the use of computers and software has penetrated into every field. Whether it be government agencies, medical diagnostics and treatment, engineering applications, banking sector and stock markets, primary and higher education, space exploration, and what not, computers and software are everywhere. They have made our works easier, faster, more accurate and more reliable. But where does freedom fit into all this?
The answer lies in the software which we use. Proprietary software, that is, software which are protected by a registered trademark, make every user "agree" to a license agreement before installation. This agreement takes away all the freedom and power from the user for using that software. The user, after paying huge sums of money for that software, is restricted to nothing more than a slave in the hands of the proprietary software vendor.
There are two ways of freeing oneself from these shackles. One is to stop using software and computers and step back to the dark ages. We're sure none of us would consider this to be a feasible solution. So the other way, the answer to this menace is use of Free Software, or Open Source Software; sometimes also called Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Freeloft is an initiative for a Free India, and subsequently a Free World, free from the clutches of proprietary software.
