Freely redistributable software

Freely redistributable software is software that anyone is free to redistribute. The term has been used to mean two types of free to redistribute software, distinguished by the legal modifiability and limitations on purpose of use of the software. FRS which can be legally modified and used for any purpose is the same as free software. Non-legally modifiable FRS is freeware, shareware or similar.

The term was used as a more formal name for free software before the name open source was coined.^[1]

The non-modifiable FRS generally comes in the form of executable binaries and is often used by proprietary software companies and authors to showcase their work or to encourage the user to buy full products from them (in the case of shareware, demo or trial versions). Freeware that is not restricted to be obtained from a specific distributor is also FRS.^{[clarification needed]}

References

1. ^ Article about an FRS conference from the Linux Journal in 1996