Nordic countries are Free Icon Creator Converter all examples of countries where education is free all the way Free Icon Creator Converter up including post-graduate studies. In Sweden and Finland, there is Free Icon Creator Converter not even a fee Free Icon Creator Converter for foreign students enrolling at a university (exchange or not), Free Icon Creator Converter although they may not Free Icon Creator Converter be eligible for the monthly study allowance and loan most nationals Free Icon Creator Converter are.
Several Free Icon Creator Converter other European countries, such as England and Germany, have had a history of some forms of free education, as well as Australia. In the 1970s the Australian Labor Party led by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam Free Icon Creator Converter introduced reforms which ensured free tertiary education. These reforms were removed later in the 1980s by the Bob Hawke Labor government. Students and radicals played Free Icon Creator Converter an important part in forcing the Whitlam government to implement the free education system as Free Icon Creator Converter well Free Icon Creator Converter as opposing the introduction of tertiary Free Icon Creator Converter fees in the 1980s.
In some developing countries like Sri Lanka education is given free from the primary level up to the tertiary level. In Jamaica following the general election on September 3rd 2008, the new Prime Minster declared free tution cost for all secondary school students.
Nowadays, as for Free Icon Creator Converter many parts of the world outside the Nordic countries, free education usually comes to students in the form of scholarship and grants, if they cover all or most of Free Icon Creator Converter students' expenses Free Icon Creator Converter while at Free Icon Creator Converter school. Patrons for grants and scholarships Free Icon Creator Converter may be individuals, institutions Free Icon Creator Converter (often the school itself), advocacy initiatives, etc. They may have Free Icon Creator Converter economic (e.g. tax-deductibility), humanitarian, charitable or religious reasons. Ireland has free education at all levels, including college and university which is also free.
reedom is a very broad concept Free Icon Creator Converter that has been Free Icon Creator Converter given numerous different interpretations Free Icon Creator Converter by different philosophies and Free Icon Creator Converter schools of thought. The protection of interpersonal freedom can be the object of a social and political investigation, while the metaphysical foundation of inner Free Icon Creator Converter freedom is a philosophical and Free Icon Creator Converter psychological question. Both forms of freedom come together in each individual as the internal Free Icon Creator Converter and external values Free Icon Creator Converter mesh together Free Icon Creator Converter in a dynamic compromise and power struggle; the society fighting for power in defining the values of individuals and the individual fighting for societal acceptance and respect in establishing one's Free Icon Creator Converter own values in it.
|
In philosophy, freedom often ties in with the question of free will. Libertarian philosophers have argued that all human beings are always free Free Icon Creator Converter - Jean-Paul Sartre, for instance, famously claimed that humans are Free Icon Creator Converter "condemned to be free" - because Free Icon Creator Converter they always have Free Icon Creator Converter a choice even an external authority can only threaten punishment after an action, not physically prevent Free Icon Creator Converter a person from carrying out an action. At the other end of the spectrum, determinism claims that the future is pre-determined and freedom is an illusion.
The philosopher Isaiah Berlin drew an Free Icon Creator Converter important distinction Free Icon Creator Converter between "freedom from" (negative freedom) and "freedom to" (positive freedom). For example, Free Icon Creator Converter freedom from oppression and freedom Free Icon Creator Converter to develop one's potential. Both these Free Icon Creator Converter types of freedom are in fact Free Icon Creator Converter reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Freedom as the absence of restraint means Free Icon Creator Converter unwilling to subjugate, lacking submission, or without forceful inequality. The Free Icon Creator Converter achievement of Free Icon Creator Converter this form of freedom Free Icon Creator Converter depends upon a combination of the resistance of the individual (or group) and one's (their) environment; Free Icon Creator Converter if one is in jail or even limited by a lack of resources, this person is free within their power and environment, but not free to defy reality. Natural laws restrict this form of freedom; for instance, no one is Free Icon Creator Converter free to fly (though we may or may Free Icon Creator Converter not be free to attempt to do so). Isaiah Berlin appears to call this kind of freedom "negative freedom" - an Free Icon Creator Converter absence of obstacles put in the way of my action (especially by other people). He distinguishes Free Icon Creator Converter this from Free Icon Creator Converter "positive freedom", which refers to one's power to make choices leading to action.
Free Free Icon Creator Converter software Free Icon Creator Converter is software that can be used, Free Icon Creator Converter studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions only to ensure that further Free Icon Creator Converter recipients can also do Free Icon Creator Converter these things. To make these acts possible, the human readable Free Icon Creator Converter form of the program (the "source code") must be made available. Free Icon Creator Converter The Free Icon Creator Converter source code may be either accompanied by Free Icon Creator Converter a notice granting the above permissions (a free Free Icon Creator Converter software licence), or, much less commonly, the source code can be released into public domain. The free software movement was launched in 1983 to make these freedoms available to every computer user.
|
From the late 1990s Free Icon Creator Converter onward, alternative terms for free software Free Icon Creator Converter came into use. "Open source software" is the most common such alternative term. Others include "software libre", "free, libre and open-source Free Icon Creator Converter software" Free Icon Creator Converter ("FLOSS"), and "free and open source software" Free Icon Creator Converter ("FOSS"). The antonym of free software is "proprietary software" or non-free software.
Free software is Free Icon Creator Converter distinct from "freeware" which is proprietary software Free Icon Creator Converter made available free Free Icon Creator Converter of charge. Users usually cannot study, modify, or redistribute freeware. The only permission freeware has Free Icon Creator Converter in Free Icon Creator Converter common with free software is the permission to use the software.
Since free software may be freely redistributed, it generally is available at little or no cost. Free software business models are usually based on Free Icon Creator Converter adding value such as support, training, customization, integration, or certification. At the same time, some business models which work with proprietary software are not Free Icon Creator Converter compatible with free software, such as those that depend on Free Icon Creator Converter a user having no choice but to pay for a licence in order to lawfully use a software product.
Free software is a huge international effort, producing software used by individuals, large organizations, and governmental Free Icon Creator Converter administrations. Free software has a very high market penetration in server-side Internet Free Icon Creator Converter applications such as the Apache web server, MySQL database, and PHP scripting language. Completely free computing environments Free Icon Creator Converter are available as large packages Free Icon Creator Converter of basic system Free Icon Creator Converter software such as the many Linux distributions and FreeBSD. Free software developers have also created free versions of almost all commonly used desktop applications such as web Free Icon Creator Converter browsers, office productivity suites, and multimedia players. It is important Free Icon Creator Converter to note, however, that in many categories, free software for individual workstation or home Free Icon Creator Converter users has only a fraction of Free Icon Creator Converter the market share of their proprietary competitors. Most free software is distributed online without charge, Free Icon Creator Converter or off-line at the marginal cost of distribution, but this is not required, and Free Icon Creator Converter people may sell copies for any price.
|
The economic viability Free Icon Creator Converter of free software has been recognised by large corporations such as IBM, Red Hat, and Sun Microsystems. Many companies whose core business is not in the IT sector choose free software for Free Icon Creator Converter their Internet information and sales sites, due Free Icon Creator Converter to the lower Free Icon Creator Converter initial capital investment and ability to freely customize the application packages. Also, some non-software Free Icon Creator Converter industries are beginning to use techniques similar Free Icon Creator Converter to those used in free software development for their research and development: Free Icon Creator Converter scientists, for example, are looking towards more open development processes, and hardware such as microchips are Free Icon Creator Converter beginning to be developed with specifications released under copyleft licenses (see the OpenCores project, for instance). Creative Commons and Free Icon Creator Converter the free culture movement have also been largely influenced by the free software movement. |