The Free Software Directory (FSD) is a project of the
Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985, to support the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed under copyleft (" ...
(FSF). It catalogs
free software
Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...
that runs under free
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...
s—particularly
GNU
GNU () is an extensive collection of free software (383 packages as of January 2022), which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operat ...
and
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...
. The cataloged projects are often able to run in several other operating systems. The project was formerly co-run by
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
.
Unlike some other directories that focus on free software, Free Software Directory staff verify the licenses of software listed in the directory.
Coverage growth and usages
FSD has been used as a source for assessing the share of free software, for example finding in September 2002 an amount of "1550 entries, of which 1363 (87.9%) used the GPL license, 103 (6.6%) used the LGPL license, 32 (2.0%) used a BSD or BSD-like license, 29 (1.9%) used the Artistic license, 5 (0.3%) used the MIT license". By September 2009, the Directory listed 6,000 packages whose number grew up to 6,500 in October 2011, when the newly updated directory was launched. All listed packages are "free for any computer user to download, run and share. Each entry is individually checked and tested ... so users know that any program they come across in the directory will be truly free software ... with free documentation and without proprietary software requirements".
Several scientific publications review or refer to the directory. It has been remarked that the Directory "only includes software that runs on free operating systems. The FSF/UNESCO Free Software Directory is also a collaborative project, offering a web interface for users to enter and update entries".
Among the critical issues of the previous version, it has been pointed out that while "available software is described using a variety of textual metadata, including the components upon which a particular piece of software depends", "unfortunately, those dependencies are only listed by name, and locating and retrieving them is left to the user".
On the other hand, the accuracy of the directory review on licenses is acknowledged.
The code review from the directory's editorial board is suitable for obtaining statistics on subsets of free software packages reliably clustered by license.
In September 2011, the Free Software Directory was re-implemented as a
wiki
A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pub ...
, using
MediaWiki
MediaWiki is a free and open-source wiki software. It is used on Wikipedia and almost all other Wikimedia websites, including Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata; these sites define a large part of the requirement set for MediaWi ...
and the
Semantic MediaWiki
Semantic MediaWiki (SMW) is an extension to MediaWiki that allows for annotating semantic data within wiki pages, thus turning a wiki that incorporates the extension into a semantic wiki. Data that has been encoded can be used in semantic search ...
extension, to allow users to directly add to and modify its contents.
Semantic MediaWiki provides the directory with
semantic web technologies by adding "advanced search and presentation capabilities, structured to be useful for reading by both humans and data-mining programs".
[The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Re-launches Free Software Directory](_blank)
TECK.IN, October 3rd, 2011.
The new edition of the directory has been described as designed to ease and support with
semantics
Semantics (from grc, σημαντικός ''sēmantikós'', "significant") is the study of reference, meaning, or truth. The term can be used to refer to subfields of several distinct disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics and comp ...
the discovery and harvesting of information on free software programs. "An extensive and flexible category system, plus over 40,000 keywords and more than 40 different fields of information, enhance both simple and advanced searching".
A recent snapshot of the
taxonomy
Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification.
A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...
of the projects reviewed and accepted in the directory is the following:
[http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Category/All Last visited: 2017 January 29.]
*accessibility
*accounting
*addressbooks
*addresses
*archive
*audio
*barcodes
*barcoding
*bitcoin
*cad
*calculating
*calendar
*command-line
*compressing
*console
*copying
*daemon
*database
*desktop-enhancement
*e-mail
*ebooks
*ecommerce
*editing
*education
*email
*fax
*faxing
*file-manager
*frontend
*gameplaying
*gnome-app
*graphics
*hobbies
*html
*images
*interface
*internet-application
*kde-app
*library
*live-communications
*localization
*mathematics
*mixing
*organizing
*pim
*playing
*printing
*productivity
*project-management
*reading
*science
*security
*software-development
*specialized
*spreadsheet
*sql
*stock-market
*storage
*system-administration
*telephony
*text
*text-creation
*timekeeping
*timetracker
*video
*web
*web-authoring
*window-manager
*x-window-system
*xml
See also
References
External links
The Free Software Directory
{{Free Software Foundation
Free Software Foundation
UNESCO
MediaWiki websites
Semantic wikis