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# Footnotes

### (1)

The wording here was careless. The intention was that nobody would have to pay for permission to use the GNU system. But the words don't make this clear, and people often interpret them as saying that copies of GNU should always be distributed at little or no charge. That was never the intent; later on, the manifesto mentions the possibility of companies providing the service of distribution for a profit. Subsequently I have learned to distinguish carefully between "free" in the sense of freedom and "free" in the sense of price. Free software is software that users have the freedom to distribute and change. Some users may obtain copies at no charge, while others pay to obtain copies -- and if the funds help support improving the software, so much the better. The important thing is that everyone who has a copy has the freedom to cooperate with others in using it.

### (2)

This is another place I failed to distinguish carefully between the two different meanings of "free". The statement as it stands is not false -- you can get copies of GNU software at no charge, from your friends or over the net. But it does suggest the wrong idea.

### (3)

Several such companies now exist.

### (4)

The Free Software Foundation raises most of its funds from a distribution service, although it is a charity rather than a company. If no one chooses to obtain copies by ordering from the FSF, it will be unable to do its work. But this does not mean that proprietary restrictions are justified to force every user to pay. If a small fraction of all the users order copies from the FSF, that is sufficient to keep the FSF afloat. So we ask users to choose to support us in this way. Have you done your part?

### (5)

A group of computer companies recently pooled funds to support maintenance of the GNU C Compiler.

This document was generated by Frank Heckenbach on May, 10 2002 using texi2html