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<h2>Free Software and Education</h2>
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<h3>How Does Free Software Relate to Education?</h3>

<p>Software freedom plays a fundamental role in education. 
Educational institutions of all levels should use and teach Free 
Software because it is the only software that allows them to accomplish 
their essential missions: to disseminate human knowledge and to prepare 
students to be good members of their community. The source code and the 
methods of Free Software are part of human knowledge. On the contrary, 
proprietary software is secret, restricted knowledge, which is the 
opposite of the mission of educational institutions. Free Software 
supports education, proprietary software forbids education.</p>

<p>Free Software is not just a technical question; it is an ethical,
social, and political question. It is a question of the human rights
that the users of software ought to have. Freedom and cooperation are
essential values of Free Software. The GNU System implements these
values and the principle of sharing, since sharing is good and
beneficial to human progress.</p>

<p>To learn more, see the 
<a href="/philosophy/free-sw.html">Free Software definition</a> 
and our article on 
<a href="/philosophy/shouldbefree.html">why software should be free</a>
(as in freedom).</p>

<h3>The Basics</h3>
<p>The GNU Project was 
<a href="/gnu/initial-announcement.html">launched</a> in 1983 by 
Richard Stallman to develop a Free Libre operating system: the GNU 
operating system. As a result, today it is possible for anyone to use a 
computer in freedom.</p>

<p>In this six-minutes video Richard Stallman explains briefly and to 
the point the principles of Free Software and how they connect to 
education.</p>

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Transcriptions of this 
 video are  available in <a href="/education/misc/rms-education-es-translation-to-en.txt">English</a>, 


<a href="/education/misc/rms-education-es-transcription.txt">Spanish</a>,  and 
<a href="/education/misc/edu-misc.html#transcription-rms-education">
   other languages</a>. 
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SubRip subtitle files 
are also available for download in
<a href="/education/misc/rms-education-es-sub.en.srt">English</a>, 
<a href="/education/misc/rms-education-es-sub.es.srt">Spanish</a>, and
<a href="/education/misc/edu-misc.html#subtitles-rms-education">other 
   languages</a>.  
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<div class="edu-note"><p>
We are looking for free educational games, or information about free games 
that can be used for educational purposes. Contact 
<a href="mailto:education@gnu.org"><education@gnu.org></a>.
</p></div>

<h3 id="indepth">In Depth</h3>

<ul>
<li>Learn about the <a href="/education/edu-why.html">Reasons Why</a> 
educational institutions should use and teach exclusively Free Software.</li>

<li>An article by Richard Stallman:
<a href="/education/edu-schools.html">Why Schools Should Exclusively Use 
Free Software</a>.</li>

<li>An article by Dr. V. Sasi Kumar on the
<a href="/education/edu-system-india.html">education system in India</a>.</li>
</ul>


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<p>Please send general FSF & GNU inquiries to
<a href="mailto:gnu@gnu.org"><gnu@gnu.org></a>.
There are also <a href="/contact/">other ways to contact</a>
the FSF.  Broken links and other corrections or suggestions can be sent
to <a href="mailto:webmasters@gnu.org"><webmasters@gnu.org></a>.</p>

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<p>Copyright © 2011, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2020  Free Software Foundation,
Inc.</p>

<p>This page is licensed under a <a rel="license"
href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">Creative
Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.</p>

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<p class="unprintable">Updated:
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$Date: 2026/03/29 18:09:20 $
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