What is FOSS

Posted on November 6, 2022  • 

8 minutes  •

1543 words

1. Introduction To Open Source

Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and re/distribution. It’s a movement in software that began as a response to the limitations of proprietary code with the main principle of open collaboration.

Generally, open source in IT refers to a source code that is available to the general public for use or modification. The code is released under the terms of a software license. Depending on the license terms, others may then download, modify, and publish their version (fork) back to the community.

2. Open collaboration

Open collaboration is any system of production that relies on goal-oriented participants who interact to create a product (or service) of economic value, which is made available to contributors and noncontributors alike. It is prominently observed in open source software.

It is the principle of peer production and mass collaboration and has been popularized by Richard Stallman’s GNU Manifesto. And  since then it can also be found in many other instances, such as in Internet forums and other Internet communities.

3. What is Free Open Source Software (FOSS)

The Free Software Movement was made known by Richard Stallman (ex researcher at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory). He had grown frustrated by the spread of proprietary software and came to see it as a violation of people’s rights to innovate and improve existing software.

In 1983, Stallman launched the GNU Project—an effort to create a complete operating system which would provide its users with the freedom to view, change, and share its source code. Stallman articulated his motivation for the project in the GNU Manifesto .

Proprietary software, according to Stallman, puts an unfair burden on users and developers who would otherwise be able to change the code to suit their own needs or alter it to serve a new function. Thus, the GNU Project can be seen as both a response to the rise of proprietary software as well as a callback to the previous era of freely shared source code and collaborative software development.

In 1985, Stallman built on the GNU Project by founding the Free Software Foundation (FSF), a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the concept of free software to the wider public. Stallman would also later develop the GNU General Public License, a software license which guarantees the rights of end-users to run, view, and share source code freely.

The Freedoms

According to the FSF, for a piece of software to be considered truly “free,” its license must guarantee four essential freedoms to its users:

1. The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose.
2. The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
3. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
4. The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others. By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

4. What is the difference between Free and Open Source Software

The difference in meaning between “free software” and “open source software” comes from the difference in the approach and philosophy.

As the Open Source Initiative sees it, both terms mean the same thing, and they can be used interchangeably in just about any context. They simply prefer the “open source” label because they believe it provides a clearer description of the software and its creators’ intent for how it should be used.

For the “free software” side (ex. Free Software Foundation and OpenMindsClub) “open source” doesn’t fully convey the importance of the movement and the potential long-term social problems caused by proprietary software. We see OSI as being too concerned with promoting the practical benefits of non-proprietary software (including its profitability and the efficiency of a community-driven development model), and not concerned enough with the ethical issues and restricting users’ rights to change and improve code on their own terms.

Whether or not a given piece of software is free or open source depends on which license it’s distributed under and whether that license is approved by the Open Source Initiative, the Free Software Foundation, or both.

5. Most Popular FOSS Licenses

A. Copyleft Licenses

Term coined by Richard Stallman, “Copyleft” refers to licenses that allow derivative works but require them to use the same license as the original work.

1. Common development and distribution license (CDDL)
2. Mozilla public licenses (MPL)
3. GPL
4. Lesser GPL (LGPL)
5. Eclipse public license (EPL)

B. Permissive Licenses

A “permissive” license is simply a non-copyleft open source license — one that permits proprietary derivative works.

1. Apache 2
2. BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution)
3. MIT

6. Why FOSS Matters

• Proprietary licensing blocks community-driven software development, effectively siloing innovation and crippling the advancement of technology.

• Community. Open source solutions geared toward the enterprise often have thriving communities around them, bound by a common drive to support and improve a solution that both the enterprise and the community benefit from (and believe in). The global communities united around improving these solutions introduce new concepts and capabilities faster, better, and more effectively than internal teams working on proprietary solutions.

• The power of the crowd. Many hands can deliver powerful outcomes. The collective power of a community of talented individuals working in concert delivers not only more ideas, but quicker development and troubleshooting when issues arise.

• Transparency. Open source code means just that—you get full visibility into the code base, as well as all discussions about how the community develops features and addresses bugs. In contrast, proprietary code produced in secrecy may come with unforeseen limitations and other unwelcome surprises. With open source, you’re protected against lock-in risks and can see exactly what you’re getting.

• Reliability. Because there are more eyes on it, the reliability of open source code tends to be superior as well. With a worldwide community supporting a code base—rather than one team within one company—code is developed on online forums and guided by experts. The output tends to be extremely robust, tried, and tested code. In fact, open source code now powers about 90% of the internet and is being rapidly adopted across major enterprises for this reason.

• Better security. As with reliability, open source software’s code is often more secure because it is much more thoroughly reviewed and vetted by the community (and any issues that do arise tend to be patched more diligently).

• Merit-based. With open source code, the sole motivation behind decision making around the direction of a solution is to make the best, most useful product possible. Corporations making proprietary code usually put the bottom line foremost, which is not always ideal. When choosing a technology integral to your business, it’s best to ensure its agenda supports your own interests.

• Cost effective. Although open source solutions should be thought of as more than just free software, the fact that they require no licensing fees remains a decisive advantage when looking at the total cost of deploying a solution.

• Freedom from lock-in. Proprietary software for core infrastructure increases the risk of becoming locked in by the vendor or technology. If this happens, enterprises can be at the mercy of vendors' price increases and experience a lack of flexibility they can’t easily and readily escape. Enterprises should be careful to use true open source solutions, rather than those from providers that repackage open source software to include proprietary hooks.

• Becoming the norm. The many large enterprises implementing open source solutions—and often making policies out of doing so—are bringing the strength of their resources to the communities that support open source solutions.

References

• Free Software Foundation
• GNU
• Open Source Initiative
• Comparison of free and open-source software licenses