Suckless is a subtype of free software focused on extreme minimalism and simplicity in the spirit of Unix philosophy. It is informally described as a «software that sucks less». Suckless also refers to the group of developers and users of such software.
Suckless software is a reaction to corruption and decline of legally free software; as free license is a condition necessary, but not sufficient for free software, a great number of capitalist software that is free legally started to limit or deny the four essential freedoms of its users in other than legal ways. For example, a software that legally allows itself to be studied and modified may still make this extremely difficult in practice by being extremely overcomplicated to the point that modification in practice requires a very significant amount of effort and resources. This way a company can market its software as free or open-source but still keep de facto control. Such software may be seen as de facto not free.
Suckless tries to grant computing freedom both legally and in practice by eliminating complexity, dependencies and other factors going against freedom. It tries to offer straightforward, portable, intercompatible and easy to modify tools that don't put heavy burdens on its users and don't make people slave to technology.
This page was last edited on 2026-09-25 02:04:49.
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