An issue that garners far less press coverage than the ongoing net neutrality story is that of free software. The software powering the devices we use is just as vital for the internet as is the management of the "pipes" that carry our data. Most of us, though, don't even think about the software we choose to use (or worse, are coerced to because of total marketplace saturation).

By free software, they do not mean software that is given away at no cost. Lifelong free software activist Richard Stallman uses the French word "libre" to describe his ideal software; it's free as in freedom, not as in free beer. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) defines four criteria for this freedom: the freedom to run the software for any purpose; to study how it works (to have access to its source code); to redistribute copies; and to publish modified and improved versions.

These freedoms are not upheld by the proprietary software the majority of the world uses. Your computer probably runs Microsoft's Windows or Apple's OS, which are subject to an end-user licence agreement that you probably clicked through in a few seconds, stripping you of the above freedoms. The reason most companies restrict those freedoms is because, in their assessment, there is more money to be made if their own freedom and control over devices is maximised.

There are all kinds of examples of actively unfree software. One of the most unwittingly apt examples was the removal from Kindle e-reader devices of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four by Amazon last year. In this instance, customers were deprived of something they had paid for in response to the company's failure to make sure of its legal position.

This is the tip of the iceberg in terms of so-called "digital rights management" (DRM) software (known to the FSF as "digital restrictions management"). DRM has proved so unpopular that Apple removed it from all of the music sold on its iTunes store – but only after six years of user grumbling and DRM-free competition. Frustration with cumbersome DRM restrictions is one of the biggest contributing factors to the explosion of file sharing in recent years.

DRM is, however, far from the biggest threat to our digital freedom. Software developers routinely leave "back doors" in their products. A good example is RIM's recent agreement with the Saudi government to make the encrypted communications of BlackBerry users accessible for surveillance. This echoes a 1993 case when the US government tried to push its "Clipper" encryption chip into all mobile phones – with the government holding copies of the keys "just in case" they were needed for surveillance. Vocal resistance from digital civil liberties organisations and the development of free/libre alternative encryption schemes fortunately made this nonviable.

It's not just about phones, either: Microsoft, in co-operation with hardware manufacturers like Intel, has included a "trusted computing" system ("treacherous computing" to Stallman) in Windows 7, which gives them the power to interfere with users' systems remotely. As elsewhere, this is being sold to consumers as a feature, rather than a further infringement of their freedom.

Opening up the source code of software like Windows, RIM's BlackBerry OS, or Apple's OS would enable the online community of programmers (real "hackers") to examine it and expose unfree elements. This would not compromise a product's profitability – most people wouldn't have the knowledge or inclination to spend hours compiling source code into a usable program.

Making source codes available would not only be a safeguard for users, but hasten the end of software patents. The FSF opposes the idea that software should be patentable. There are too many arguments in favour to be mentioned here, but the most important one is that patents stifle innovation and competition – the reverse of the patent system's stated aim. The best example of this is Apple's ongoing lawsuit against competing smartphone manufacturer HTC based on its patents – including "unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image" – something so obvious and fundamental that success in the suit would effectively give Apple a monopoly.

What needs to be done to get more people to adopt free software? People need to start evangelising, in the same way that they did for recent success stories like Spotify, Foursquare or even Facebook. People need to know that free software is compatible with the standards they use for writing documents, online communication and creating multimedia content. Free software needs to aim at maximum user-friendliness. Most importantly, big businesses need to realise there is an appetite for software that users know they can trust.