The Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) Movement - by Stefano Mazzocchi

The Free and Open Source
Software (FOSS) Movement

       by Stefano Mazzocchi

Free Software

Coined by the Free Software Foundation
(Richard Stallman, here at MIT) as a way to
promote freedom of software principles
Based on ethical principles
Explicitly values freedom as a better value
than any economical and/or productivity ones

Open Source Software
Coined by the development environments
around software produced by open
collaboration of software developers on the
internet
Later specified by the Open Source Initiative
(OSI)
It does not explicitly state ethical values,
besides those directly associated to software
development

Free Software Definition
 The freedom to run the program, for any
 purpose.
 The freedom to study how the program works,
 and adapt it to your needs.
 The freedom to redistribute copies so you can
 help your neighbor.
 The freedom to improve the program, and
 release your improvements to the public, so
 that the whole community benefits.

Copyleft
Copyleft sofware is software that is released
under the GPL (GNU Public License), the main
license of the Free Software Foundation
All copyleft software is free software
There is free software that is not copyleft,
released under licenses that value the same
freedom principles but have different licensing
models (example, the MIT license)

Free as in Speech

The English language uses the same word ‘free’
to identify freedom and to identify ‘lack of
cost’.
For this reason, the FSF coined the saying
“Free as in speech, not as in beer”.
Free is also referred to as “free/libre” using the
french word ‘libre’ that only has one meaning.

Open Source Definition - 1

  Free Redistribution
  Access to Source Code
  Allow Derived Works
  Integrity of the Author’s Source Code
  No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups

Open Source Definition - 2

  No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
  Distribution of Single License
  License Must Not Be Specific to a Product
  The License Must Not Restrict Other Software
  The License must be technology-neutral

Caution!!

“Open Source”, despite the name, is a much
more than having just access to the code!

FS vs. OSS

All open source software adheres to the free
software principles and all free software
adheres to the open source software
principles, but...
...they differ in the philosophy behind them!

The FS Philosophy

Software is an important part of people’s lives.
Software freedom translates to social freedom.
Freedom is a value that is more important
than any economical advantage.

The OSS Philosophy

Software is just software. There are no ethics
associated directly to it.
Ethics are to be associated to the people not to
the software.
Freedom is not an absolute concept.
Freedom should be allowed, not imposed.

FOSS

Despite the philosophical differences, both
movements have very much in common:
   Highly innovative licensing models
   Based on open collaboration and sharing
   Concerned about long-term persistence/
   preservation and open contracts

Do you use FOSS software?

You do!

  FOSS runs:
    majority of the web sites
    majority of mail servers
    majority of the internet infrastructure

But not only!

FOSS is the foundation behind:
  Google
  Amazon
  Yahoo!
  TiVO
  ... just to name a few!

How was this possible? - 1

  Fertile substrate: the internet allowed cheaper
  and more reliable communication and data
  transfer than ever before.
  Reason for cooperation: it was less expensive
  to donate the changes back to the maintainers,
  than to maintain them yourself.

How was this possible? - 2

 Safe bet: the freedom to “fork” is a perpetual
 warranty against ‘lock-in’
 Non-conservative currencies: visibility, fun,
 knowledge, respect and pride are non-
 conservative currencies, you can “pay” more
 people without ever running out of them.

Secondary Effects
Code as literature: the code that run the real
programs can be studied, not just little
examples from the books!
Perpetual value: “In the long run, the utility of
all non-free software approaches zero”
Software as a commodity: it’s more efficient to
release code and let a community maintain it
and sell services on it than to sell the packaged
bits.

Myths and FUD - 1

FOSS is “free of costs”: no, the cost are just
shifted.
FOSS is less secure because done in the open:
no, all security experts agree that “security by
obscurity” is suboptimal. Moreover, “the best
security experts are unlikely to all be working
for a single company”.

Myths and FUD - 2
FOSS cannot innovate, just copy good ideas:
no, there are several examples of extreme
innovation in the FOSS movement (the Mozilla
FireFox web browser to cite one).
FOSS is against intellectual property/software
patents: no, it’s against obstacles to its
ecosystem and most of the times those are used
for that.

Myths and FUD - 3
FOSS developers are young students: no, the
majority are software professionals between 25
and 35.
FOSS doesn’t pay off: well, I got a job at MIT
:-)
FOSS is disorganized: no, it’s more ‘self-
organized’. Some projects also develop quite
rich organizational structures (the various
software foundations)

Myths and FUD - 3
FOSS can’t work since companies need
somebody to consider responsible: no, it works
because it creates a market for ‘service
providers’ around FOSS that can be sell those
services and be those trusted entities.
A FOSS program can never die: no, it does! the
code will always be available (unless all copies
on the planet were lost!) but he communities
may abandon it. [but after it died, it can always
be resurrected!]

Current Status

FOSS “owns” the internet infrastructure
FOSS runs the majority of the server
FOSS still lagging behind on the desktop, on
the web browsers and on the mail clients, even
if things are changing fast in this space

Future Challenges - 1

Legal battles: SCO vs. IBM is an example of the
kind of hostile environment (note: nothing
new, the same happened for UNIX in the 70’s
and UNIX is still out there). Software
Foundations are preparing for battle and some
IP lawyers are starting to offer their services
pro-bono, in exchange of visibility

Future Challenges - 2

Consolidation: it’s exciting and sexy to conquer
a new software niche, much less so to maintain
the domain. Project’s structures and
organizations will have to adjust themselves
when moving from conquerers to peace-
keepers.

Future Challenges - 3

Conflicts of Interests: the more important a
software project becomes, the more
economical value it will create around it. Power
abuse will be something projects will have to
police on.

Thank you!

         This presentation is a available at
http://www.betaversion.org/~stefano/papers/cms.pdf