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Free/Libre Open Source Software

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By Łukasz Jachowicz

FLOSS, free software, open source – we come across these terms more and more often, but we don’t always know what they are about and if we should pay them any attention.

The aim of this text is to present the most important aspects of FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open Source) licensing, show how various licenses differ, and prove that free access to technical advancements is a subject worthy of our attention.

What is FLOSS?

Free software is a type of software which does not burden its users with strict licensing regulations on copying, modifying and running it. In other words, we are free to copy a software protected by a free license, and, what’s more, we may check its source code and correct it if we want. We may even redistribute the software that we’ve changed. What’s also very important, there is no division between commercial and non-commercial use. We should be aware, however, that “free” doesn’t necessarily mean “free of charge”: if we want, we can sell the software, but we need to remember that the buyer will be able to redistribute it – for free or not.

Free or Open?

The term free software is sometimes used synonymously with open source. For a typical user there’s no difference between these two types of softwares, the names simply highlight different aspects of free licensing. Creators of free software underline the user’s and the programmer’s freedom, whereas the developers of open source simply inform recipients that they have free access to the source code, ignoring the philosophical aspects.

To put the two approaches towards licensing philosophy under one label, the term FLOSS has been suggested, and it’s proving to be useful.

Licenses

The most popular free software license is GNU General Public License (GNU GPL). When we decide to protect our software with it, we grant every user of our program all the advantages of using a free software. It means that any software under GNU GPL license may be used, copied, modified and redistributed regardless of users’ commercial or noncommercial aims. A program under this license has to be distributed either with full source code or with information where the code may be found (for example, the web address of the site where the code is published). It doesn’t mean, however, that users have to share their own updates to the code if they modify it for their needs.

The obligation to grant all the users equal rights to the software means that particulars users are forbidden to “close” it. If someone starts using a software that we have developed and have decided to protect with GNU GPL, they cannot prevent other users from using it on equal terms. In other words, if the authors of a software decide to fully open their code, no one can “shut” it without their permission.

What’s important is that GNU PL license, like many other free software licenses, provides a full protection of authors’ rights and outlaws appropriating someone else’s code.

Some of the most important projects distributed under this license are: the core of Linux’s system code (on which Android is based), Firefox browser and graphic editors like Inkscape, GIMP and Blender. 

We may find many other examples of free licenses. Among them, the most popular ones are BSD-type licenses. Even though they are numerous (the most important ones are X11, ISC and Simplified BSD License), they all have some common traits: they allow users to launch a program an unlimited number of times, they permit to modify and redistribute it freely (for commercial and noncommercial use) and to share modified versions of the software. The most important difference between them and GNU GPL is that BSD allows any user to “close” the code – they may take the source code, modify it (or nor) and redistribute it in a compiled version, as an unmodifiable program. The final product, however, has to cointain information about the originators.

The most interesting products protected by BSD-type licenses are NetBSD, OpenSSH, Chromium, Banshee and TOR.

GPL highlights users’ freedoms and forbids to limit their rights. BSD, on the other hand, focuses on creators’ freedoms, granting them very broad privileges. A relatively new try to combine the two approaches is Mozilla Public License 2.0 (MPL). This license gives users the right to use, modify, redistribute and reuse the code under its protection, as well as to combine it with a code under a different (even a closed one!) license on condition that it is stored in a separate source file, so that every user of the final program may access the original parts of the source code under MPL protection. In other words, if a programmer wants to use fragments of the MPL code in their own “closed” product, s/he may do it providing that the “closed” code will not be stored in the same source files as the open code, enabling the final user of the modified software to access those source files which are open. In this way, anybody may develop a closed software based on fragments of an MPL code without revealing those parts of the code they invented themselves.

The MPL versions earlier than 2.0 are not compatible with GNU GPL and their use is not recommended. An MPL code may contain an “incompatible with third licenses” provision which excludes GPL, LGPL and AGPL. Due to the license’s complexity it would be recommended to consult the FAQ section on http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/2.0/FAQ.html .

MPL 2.0 is used by Mozilla Firefox, Thunderbird and Libreoffice, among others.

Except for GNU GPL and BSD we may also distinguish some other free licenses, often compatible with one another (which means that programmers may freely combine the codes under their protection). Free Software Foundation makes an Internet list of licenses compatible with GPL. Look for it at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses .

Free licenses and the authors’ rights

We should note that free licenses do not deny authors’ their rights to their creations. Even though they give users more rights than “closed” licenses, they do not allow them to sign someone else’s code with their name, or to violate the license or the copyright in any other way.

Free licenses do not contain any restrictions on use or distribution of the software. A free license may legally be used by private users as well as NGOs and commercial ventures. Neither an invoice nor a proof of purchase are necessary – because programs may be downloaded for free from the Internet.

Who makes profit out of it?

It is not difficult to find business models based on providing free software services. True, the software itself may be obtained for free, but at the same time it is legal for anyone to sell it or to sell some related services. A whole ecosystem of firms providing additional services has spawned around free programs, just as it happened in the case of a closed software (like the popular operating system Windows or the MS Office suit),. As a result, almost every program under a free license may be copied for free from the Internet, but it may also be purchased offline (for example popular Linux distributions) or obtained with a package of services of specialists who assist installation, configuration or maintenance of the program.

Another popular practice is the so-called „double licensing”, when the open version of a program is free of charge, but if someone wants to use its source code in a closed program, they have to pay. This is the solution applied by creators of one of the most popular databases in the world – MySQL. A programmer may use fragments of a source code under MySQL for free, providing they also choose to protect their solution with a free license. If they want to use the same code to develop a “closed” program, however, they need to buy a commercial license from MySQL.

It is common to make money by selling a hardware that uses a free software – that’s the case of Android in mobile phones, WiFi routers, digital TV sets and TV decoders, which very often operate on Linux products.

Where may I get help?

The best source of knowledge about the licenses are the licenses themselves. They may be found in the Internet as add-ons to a free software. A short summary of the most popular licenses, also in English or in Polish, may be found at Free Software Foundation – http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html. A table from FreedomDefined (http://freedomdefined.org/Licenses#Comparison_of_Licenses) may also be helpful. When in doubt, don’t hesitate to contact the Foundation for Free and Open Software at http://www.fwioo.pl (Polish name: Fundacja Wolnego i Otwartego Oprogramowania, English speakers welcome) or the author of this text ().

Photo in this article was published by phradaka  on FLICKR under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 License

Date

10/31/2013 - 17:10