IFSA's 2006 Software Freedom Day event on the Ithaca Commons
IFSA's 2006 Software Freedom Day event on the Ithaca Commons

About IFSA

The Ithaca Free Software Association (IFSA) is a community of computer users who live and work in the Ithaca area of Central New York. IFSA's goal is to promote Free Software and provide support to local residents and organizations who are interested in using it.

What is "Free Software?"

Free Software is a matter of liberty not price. You should think of "Free" as in "Free Speech".-- an excerpt from the Free Software Foundation Web site.

Unlike "proprietary" software, which often attempts to impose various restrictions on its users, Free Software is software that guarantees its users the right to use, study, copy, modify, and share programs with very few restrictions.

Some of the more well-known Free Software projects include:

  • GNU/Linux: A Free Software computer operating system, which runs on a myriad of different types of hardware, from PCs to cellular telephones to supercomputers!
  • Mozilla Firefox: A very popular Web browser
  • OpenOffice.org: An "office suite" of programs, including a word processor, spreadsheet, database, and presentation software.

Support the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a non-profit organization which serves as the worldwide headquarters of the Free Software movement. The FSF provides support for a large number of Free Software developers all over the World.