Many people perceive free software as simply software with which people can do whatever they want.
That's not always true, because free software often refers to a specific license. There are currently two popular licenses that could both be called free software. The first license is the BSD license . If a program is released under the BSD license, people can pretty much do whatever they want with it, including placing that program in a larger package, like Microsoft Windows, for example. Under the BSD license, this is fine, and the original author may not even be credited for his or her work.