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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>freeware</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../F.html" title="F"/><link rel="previous" href="free-software.html" title="free software"/><link rel="next" href="freeze.html" title="freeze"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">freeware</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="free-software.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">F</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="freeze.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="freeware"/><dt xmlns="" id="freeware"><b>freeware</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> [common] Freely-redistributable software, often written by
enthusiasts and distributed by users' groups, or via electronic mail, local
bulletin boards, <a href="../U/Usenet.html"><i class="glossterm">Usenet</i></a>, or other electronic media.
As the culture of the Internet has displaced the older BBS world, this term
has lost ground to both <a href="../O/open-source.html"><i class="glossterm">open source</i></a> and
<a href="free-software.html"><i class="glossterm">free software</i></a>; it has increasingly tended to be
restricted to software distributed in binary rather than source-code form.
At one time, <span class="firstterm">freeware</span> was a trademark
of Andrew Fluegelman, the author of the well-known MS-DOS comm program
PC-TALK III. It wasn't enforced after his mysterious disappearance and
presumed death in 1984. See <a href="../S/shareware.html"><i class="glossterm">shareware</i></a>,
<a href="FRS.html"><i class="glossterm">FRS</i></a>.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="free-software.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../F.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="freeze.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">free software </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> freeze</td></tr></table></div></body></html>