The importance of free software to science

Free software plays a critical role in science, both in research and in disseminating it. Aspects of software freedom are directly relevant to simulation, analysis, document preparation and preservation, security, reproducibility, and usability. Free software brings practical and specific advantages, beyond just its ideological roots, to science, while proprietary software comes with equally specific risks. As a practicing scientist, I would like to help others—scientists or not—see the benefits from free software in science.

One sad but common situation is that of a graduate student who becomes accustomed to a piece of expensive commercial analytical software (such as a symbolic-mathematics program), enjoying it either through a generous student discount or because it's paid for by the department. Then the freshly-minted PhD discovers the real price of the software, and can't afford it on their postdoc salary. They have to learn new ways of doing things, and have probably lost access to their past work, which is locked up in proprietary binary files.