Free and Open source software (FOSS) (Introduction|History)

As its Name says FOSS is a collection of vast number of software that are freely distributed over internet that can be accessed and installed by any of the individuals or groups in course of any software development or any other entertainment purposes.

Free and open Source Software is legally free to share over any places or organizations and can also it has been named as Shareware which means they can be shared everywhere.
They are categorized accordingly and no all software is provided as FOSS. Only the selected are provided with trial version purposing to attract new visitors to get that software.
Some Examples of FOSS are:-
1. Linux OS
2. OpenOffice.org
3. Mozilla Firefox
4. GNU compiler edition

Richard Stallman ( a longtime member of hacker community )  in 1983 anounced GNU project, saying that he had become frusturated with the effects of change in culture of the computer industry and its user. GNU project's software development was started in January 1984 and the Free Siftware Foundation ( FSF ) was founded in October 1985. An article outlining the project and its goals was published in March 1985 titled the GNU Manifesto. The manifesto also focused heavily on the philosophy of free software. He developed The Free Software Definition and the concept of "copyleft", designed to ensure software freedom for all.

Linus Torvalds released ' The Linux kernel' as freely modifiable source code in 1991.

Eric Raymind published ' The Cathedra and the Bazar' in 1997 which had a reflective analysis of the hacker community and free software princhiples. This paper gained siginificant attention in early 1998. This was one of the factors in motivating  Netscape Communications Corporation to release their popular Netscape Communicator Internet suite as free software. This code is these days better known as 'Mozilla Firefox' and 'Thunderbird'.

Raymond and others were prompted by Netscape's act to look into how to bring free software principles and benifits to the commercial software industry. They concluded that FSF's social activism was not appealing to companies like Netscape, and looked for a way to rebrand the free software movement to emphasize the business potential of the sharing of source code. 'Open source' was choosen as the new name and quickly Bruce Perens publisher Tim O'Reilly, Linus Torvalds and others signed on rebranding. In Feburary 1998, The Open Source Initiative was founded to encourage use of the new termas and evangelize open source principles