Information and communication technologies and software are now used in a lot of areas of human activity. The information technology industry is constantly expanding, offering new software products and services to consumers. Proprietary software vendors deliver quality programs and guarantee their upgrade and support, but set fairly hard restrictions on their use. Licenses clearly stipulate the conditions for the installation, use and transfer of software, the number of copies, etc.

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... , besides the fact that such software has a high cost in most cases, it significantly limits the freedom of users and makes them dependent on developers and vendors. One of the global software industry trends is the development of free software. Its important advantage is the ability to install, transmit and modify it without restrictions, and to use it to solve a variety of tasks, including profitable. In addition, such programs are often free, which is extremely important for the education sector. The implementation of free software in educational institutions can be considered as an important economic factor, as a factor of the development of students' competence and vocational guidance, as a factor of the development of civic consciousness. In the article the phenomenon of free software was analyzed, the movement for which began in the 70's of the twentieth century. It is found out that the idea of the free software is based on the philosophy of respect for individual freedom, which is realized through the freedom to execute programs in any way, to study and modify programs, to transfer copies of programs to other users, to transmit to other their modified versions of programs. We show the advantages and disadvantages of the free software, its role in information and civil society, the importance of its using in education.