8.2: What is Open Source or Free Software ?
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Open source as a term has only been in existence since 1998. Prior to that, and running parallel with that term, has been “free software”. Lately, open source has become the more generic public term. For Stallman and his Free Software Movement, the highest premiums have always been placed on personal/collective intellectual freedom, and he holds fast to the term “free software”. He says, “Proprietary software is a social problem and our aim is to solve the problem” (Stallman, personal communication, September 10, 2006). Stallman also says, “In nearly all cases, the software which is called ‘free’ is also open source, and the software which is called ‘open source’ is also free (though there are occasional exceptions to the latter). The difference is a mainly matter of the philosophy that the speaker endorses” (personal communication, September 10, 2006). At its most basic, open source and free software mean that the coding for an application or software has been made freely available to the public. It’s the why of that action where things get tricky. For that reason, I refer to both types of software collectively as “freely sourced”.
The spirit of freely sourced software is the spirit of collaboration in much the same way collaboration is meant to drive Web 2.0—code is revealed for people to use it, modify it and share the program/application with others. We see behind the curtains, and anyone can tinker with the Wizard’s machine, add to it, make it better, and redistribute it. In this way, freely sourced programs evolve through collective efforts. It is both evolutionary and revolutionary in those respects. Open source and free software applications are constructivist in nature. Due to wide ranging and rapid input from programmers around the world, software development time can be condensed and programs become far more responsive to users’ varied needs. Unlike proprietary commercial software, freely sourced applications are designed for user customization.
The Open Source Initiative [OSI] ( http://www.ossinstitute.org ), one of the leading and guiding open source organizations, specified 10 characteristics for open source licensing:
- free redistribution;
- readily available and useable source code;
- permission for modification of the original code and derived works;
- conditions for maintaining integrity of the author’s source code;
- equality of access regardless of person or group;
- equality of access regardless of field of endeavour;
- extension of original free distribution rights for subsequent redistributions;
- independence of, or extractable from, particular packages of software or hardware;
- licensing restrictions of the open source program do not automatically extend to additional software distributed along with it;
- non-restriction of the software to any type of technology or user interface so that it may be redistributed via means other than the Internet and may run in environments that do not allow for popup dialogue windows. (Open Source Initiative, 2006a).
As of April 2007, the OSI (2006b) approved 58 variations on open source licensing, among them the General Public Licence (GPL) (Free Software Foundation, Inc., 1991) of Stallman’s Free Software Foundation, Inc. (FSF) ( http://www.fsf.org/ ).
This doesn’t mean that open source software is completely non-commercial or non-proprietary: open source (as opposed to free software) varies according to the extent of its proprietary-nature and levels of commercialization. Jive Software ( http://jivesoftware.com ) is a company providing instant messaging software that institutions can leverage to provide real-time contact between instructors, students, and any other users, especially useful for tutorials and collaboration. Jive dual-licences its communication server, Openfire (formerly Wildfire) first as Open Source General Public Licence (GPL)10 by providing access to source code, modification, and redistribution rights and second as a commercially licensed “Enterprise” version (Jive, 2007).
Two major repositories/directories of freely sourced software and applications are the Free Software Directory ( http://directory.fsf.org/ ) and Sourceforge.net ( http://sourceforge.net/ ). SourceForge boasts a repository of over 100,000 projects and claims the “largest repository of open source code and applications available on the Internet” (Open Source Technology Group, 2006). Here you can find Pidgin ( http://www.pidgin.im/ ), an interoperable instant messaging application, and DotNetNuke ( http://www.dotnetnuke.com ), a framework for “creating and deploying projects such as … websites, … intranets and extranets, online publishing portals, and custom vertical applications” (DotNetNuke, 2006a). If you’re of a more technological bent, and speak “programmer”, you might use Koders.com (www.koders .com), the self-proclaimed “leading search engine for open source code” (Koders, 2006).