2B1107 – Computer Technology Project What is Free/Open Source Software? Lars Noodén

Definitions ● FOSS - Free and Open Source Software

Who makes money from FOSS? Many various web hotels ● Linux, BSD (13 out of 20) + Apache, MySQL, Perl, Java, PHP, etc. Google ● Linux distro, GCC, Python & other FOSS: ● "Every time you use Google, you're using a machine running the Linux kernel." ●

Who makes money from FOSS? Second Life (Linden Labs) ● Secondlife Viewer (GPL) ● world/viewerlicensing ● “Linden Lab has always been a strong advocate of the use of open standards and the advantages of using open source products.” ●

Who makes money from FOSS? Boeing (aircraft) ● ● html ● "We were championing the usage of Open Source Software and it turns out that we only had to write about ten percent of the code ourselves. The rest is out there like building blocks in Open Source Software, that you can use and build these applications. Our expertise is knowing what is out there and how to integrate it." ●

How FOSS works ● modularity – small pieces do one thing very well – many pieces are combined to make complex systems

Who makes money from FOSS? Ernie Ball Guitar ● everything: ● ● ●

Who makes money from FOSS? Amazon.com ● “... cut technology expenses by about 25 percent, from $71 million to $54 million” ● ● ”...amazon.com is built on top of open source software” ●

Open Source ⊇ Free Software ● Open Source is an offshoot and superset of Free Software ● source code is the list of instructions used to make a program (like a recipe) ● The source code is available to ● use, ● modify and ● re-distribute ● open source and open standards different

What Defines Free Software? A program is Free Software if users have these four freedoms: ● The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0). ● The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. ● The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2). ● The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3).

Licensing Commercial Non- Commercial Open Source Freew are Closed Source Free Software Venn Diagram of Licensing Categories

Further Reading ● Open Source Initiative (OSI) definition: ● "What Does Free Mean? or What do you mean by Free Software?"

Liberty vs No Fee ● Libre ● Vapaa ●... ● Gratis ● Ilmainen ●... Find separate words for 'liberty' and 'no charge'

Non-Commercial Liberty Price Commercial

Comparison Again ● public domain – out of copyright ● freeware – no fee, but under copyright ● shareware – no obligatory fee ● nagware / adware – bothers users until paid for ● proprietary – requires contract ● closed source – binary only ● open source – source ● free software – source + legal requirements

Two Aspects of Open Source Development Model ● similar to scholarly research and publishing Licensing Method ● the source code is available for use, modification and re- distribution

Licensing ● install the software on as many machines as you want. ● many people may use the software at one time ● unlimited redistribution ● no restrictions on modifying the software ● no restriction on distributing, or even selling, the software Closed Source Open Source Commercial Software Free Software

Licensing and Copyright ● Licenses granted by copyright holder for works not yet in the public domain ● public domain – usable whole or in part in any way, at any time, by anyone ● In Europe, software is governed by copyright ● Berne Convention ● Copyright concerns distribution, not usage

Licensing and Development ● linking is legally a derivative of the original library ● static – incorporated during compilation ● dynamic – incorporated at run-time ● "Proprietary Software linking" is linking by closed sourced applications or libraries ● redistribution ● unchanged ● modified app/library based on the app/library

Further Reading ● Open Source Licenses. Zack Rusin.

Licensing Exercise ● Find a piece of software. ● Identify the page(s) containing the license – source included? – right to modify? – right to re-distribute ● Rating – is it GPL-compatible? – does it fulfill OSI's criteria?

Open Source Development ● Peer review ● examined ● evaluated ● critiqued ● improved ● Builds on past works ● "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." ● "But if you're determined to reinvent the wheel, at least try to invent a better one." Parallels academic research model

Development Model ● Open source can also be thought of as a development model, which follows closely scholarly research and publishing. ● Ideas and improvements are discussed and shared freely, so that less time is spent re-inventing the wheel and more time spent making progress. ● A corresponding metaphor from Finnish culture is talcoot.

Inventiveness ● The BSDs are a good example of exchange of ideas. ● They each have a common origin, but different priorities ● When improvements and breakthroughs get established and then polished in one branch, they quickly percolate through the others.

Sharing of Ideas ● NetBSD focuses on portability - having it run on every piece of hardware imaginable. ● FreeBSD concentrates on performance on x86, common processors, especially x86 support, ● OpenBSD specializes in encryption and standards, with only two remote holes in the default install in over 10 years. ● DragonFlyBSD works towards cluster computing

Kernel Timeline ● Like with the BSD's, other systems sooner or later, – adopt improvements from others – contribute improvements to others ● For close to four decades, improvements have been made and exchanged between projects and products ● Unix Timeline. Éric Lévénez. (2008)

Kernel Development ● Unix Timeline. Éric Lévénez. (2008)

Selected Development Examples ● Typesetting language (esp. for mathematics) TEX & LATEX & AMSTEX ● DNS tools - BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain) ● Web browsers - Mosaic Firefox / Thunderbird ● Web servers - Apache – world's most widely used web server Lighttpd – major tool ● Relational Databases - MySQL, Postgresql ● Productivity Software OpenOffice.org – suite ● Mail Servers – sendmail, postfix, exim, qmail ● Single signon – Kerberos OpenLDAP ● Programming modules Perl & CPAN, PHP/Mason Others, too e.g. Savanna and Sourceforge

Further Reading ● Internet Pioneers: Marc Andreesen. ibiblio. ● U.S. DoJ v Microsoft. Finding of Fact. (1999) ● MSIE pre-installed on all Wintel boxes ● can not be removed ● components metasticised even into the kernel

What is Free Software, then? ● Free Software is a specific idea, stemming from the GNU project, founded in 1984 by Dr. Richard Stallman while at the MIT AI lab ● The idea is to have a license that encourages collaboration ● Distribution is not obligatory, but if it is done, then it must include the source code. ● The GNU General Public License ( GPL) is by far the most popular open source license.

Free Software ● The GNU Project is 25 years old this fall ● September 27, 2008 ● Goal is an entirely Free operating system ● some parts wholly new – started with editor – many utilities ● others brought in – X11, TeX, etc. ● Components now found in every major or minor system

Further Reading ● "Open source software - A key element in Norwegian ICT-strategy." Heidi Grande Røys (2007) _og_administrasjonsminister/taler_artikler/2007/eZ-Conference--- Awards.html?id=471985

● "Navy to focus only on open systems" Federal Computer Week. Peter Buxbaum. (March 6, 2008)

2B1107 – Computer Technology Project What is Free/Open Source Software? Lars Noodén