1 The basic knowledge of open source and free software- Topic 1 & OSS in perspective- Topic 2 Parastoo Mohagheghi, 26 August 2010 Topics1&2
2 Outline OSS facts and figures Definitions of F/OSS History of OSS OSS licenses Open standards The Transformation of Open Source Software (Fitzgerald) Open Source Research at NTNU Fri programvare innen offentlig og privat sektor - hva vet vi?
3 Market share of F/OSS * Apache is the current #1 web server. GNU/Linux is the #1 server Op.Sys. on public internet. Sendmail is the leading email server. PHP is the web s #1 server-side Scripting language. OpenSSH is the Internet s #1 implementation of the SSH security protocol. * David A. Wheeler: "Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS, FLOSS, or FOSS)? Look at the Numbers!, Calibre project, April 2007
4 Quality of F/OSS - Scalability GNU/Linux is used in 78% of the world s 500 fastest supercomputers. OSS/FS development processes can scale to develop large software systems. IBM: using GNU/Linux on all machine series, from supercomputer to laptops and mobile devices.
5 Quality of F/OSS - Performance GNU/Linux had better performance than Windows for pipes, process, and thread creation. MySQL was quite comparable to the proprietary Oracle database with respect to performance. Microsoft themselves found that Linux and FreeBSD had better performance than Windows by many measures.
6 Quality of F/OSS - Security The majority of the most serious security problems only apply to Microsoft s products, and not to F/OSS, according to a CERT/CC s report in 2001. A 2002 survey of developers found that GNU/Linux are relatively immune from attacks from outsiders. Apache has a better security record than Microsoft s IIS, as measured by reports of serious vulnerabilities.
7 Quality of F/OSS- Reliability GNU/Linux is more reliable than Windows NT, according to a 10-month ZDnet experiment. MySQL database had fewer defects than a set of 200 commercial programs used for comparison. Miscroft s IIS Web server have double the time offline (on average) than sites using the Apache software, according to a 3-month Swiss evaluation. 80% of the top ten most reliable hosting providers ran OSS, according to Netcraft s survey in May 2004.
8 Total cost of ownership (TCO) of F/OSS vs. Commercial SW OSS/FS costs less to initially acquire. Upgrade/maintenance costs are typically far less. Forrester research found that the average savings on TCO when using OSS/FS database management system is 50% of the commercial ones. TCO of the GNU/Linux is roughly 40% that of Microsoft Windows and only 14% that of the Sun s Solaris.
9 Governments and F/OSS More than two dozen countries in Asia, Europe, and Latin America, including China and Germany, are encouraging their government agencies to use OSS, according to a 2002 New York Times article. On June 27, 2005, Morten Andreas Meyer, the Norwegian Minister of Modernization, announced at a press conference that: Proprietary formats will no longer be acceptable in communication between citizens and government. St.meld. 17 (2006-07) by Norwegian Government recommends OSS and open standards. www.friprog.no competence centre. delingsbazaren.no for distribution of software developed with public money.
10 Industry and F/OSS F/OSS adopted by private and public policy makers: e.g., IBM and Sun Microsystems, IKT-Norge, Skattedirektoratet, KS, Over 50% of Norwegian companies use F/OSS to make new software, 16% are community members, 6% have themselves gone open.
11 Definitions of F/OSS
12 What is F/OSS? Free software is a matter of liberty, not price! Open Source Software: software compliant with one of the licences of Free Software Foundation (www.fsf.org) or Open Source Initiative (www.opensource.org). FSF, established by Richard Stallman in 1985, is a non-profit with a worldwide mission to promote computer user freedom and to defend the rights of all free software users. OSI, established by Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens in 1998, is a non-profit corporation formed to educate about and advocate for the benefits of open source and to build bridges among different constituencies in the open-source community.
13 Free software as defined by FSF Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it means that the program's users have the four essential freedoms: The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0). The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish (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 distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3).
14 Open Source as defined by OSI Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the following criteria: 1. Free Redistribution 2. Source Code available 3. Modifications and derived works allowed 4. Integrity of the author's source code 5. No discrimination against persons or groups 6. No discrimination against fields of endeavor
15 Open Source as defined by OSI- continued 7. License attached is the one valid 8. License must not be specific to a product 9. License must not restrict other software 10. License must be technology-neutral Some differences with the FSF definition but most software compliant with one definition is also compliant with the other!
16 FS movement vs. OSS movement* FS and OSS disagree on the basic principle, but agree more or less on practical recommendations. OSS definition is very close to that of FS. However, OSS is a little looser in some aspects, and have accepted a few licenses that FS considers unacceptably restrictive of the user. The views and values of OSS stem from an attempt of making FS to be more acceptable to business. * http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html
17 A short history of F/OSS There are earlier instances of open source and free software such as IBM's source releases of its operating systems and other programs in the 1950s-60s. 1967-1977: DoD/DARPA s development of Arpanet / Internet TCP/IP protocols -- open and distributed work, anti-authoritarian counter culture. 1978-85: Openness spreads via Univ. Berkeley s adaptation of Unix, with built-in Internet protocols and generous BSD licenses with all source provided. 1985: Free Software Foundation: by Richard Stallman from MIT AI Lab; ideological CopyLeft -inspired licenses. 1998: Open Software Initiative: by Eric Raymond from IT industry in US, pragmatic BSD-inspired licenses. The Cathedral and the Bazaar.
18 A short history of F/OSScontinued 1998: The decision by some people in the free software movement to use the label open source came out of a strategy session held at Palo Alto, Californi, in reaction to Netscape's January 1998 announcement of a source code release for Navigator. 2001: FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open source software) = FSF + OSI; IFIP WG2.13 uses OSS as common denominator. 2000: LAMP platform (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) 3/4 Nordic! 2005: Social computing and creative commons for knowledge work standardized formats for zero-cost digital information, the world is flat.
19 Well-known F/OSS projects GNU: GNU (GNU is Not Unix) is a project that aims on creating a completely free Unix-compatible software system. As of today this project has produced, among lots of other things, widely used compilers and debuggers such as GCC and GDB. The project is run by the Free Software Foundation. Mozilla is the generic name of web-browsers derived from the source code of Netscape Communicator, which Netscape Communications Corp. released at the end of March 1998. The development of Linux is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed, both commercially and non-commercially, by anyone under licenses such as the GNU General Public License.
20 Starting an F/OSS project There are several ways: An individual who senses the need for a project announces the intent to develop the project in public. The individual may receive offers of help from others. A developer working on a limited but working code base, releases it to the public as the first version of an OSS program. The developer continues to work on improving it, possibly is joined by other developers. The source code of a mature project is released to the public, after being developed as proprietary software or in-house software. A well-established open-source project can be forked by an interested outside party. Several developers can then start a new project, whose source code then diverges from the original.
21 F/OSS Licenses
22 Motivation An F/OSS license will define the privileges and restrictions that a user must follow, in order to use and modify the actual software. If a developer wants to publish a program as F/OSS, he/she can distribute the program as an uncopyrighted product. The user of the program can read, copy, modify, and redistribute the program. However, it is possible for someone to make the program copyrighted by modifying the original program. Consequently, the modified, copyright-protected program became a personal property, and is not F/OSS anymore. To prevent this situation, most of the F/OSS licenses implement copyleft concept, i.e., anyone who redistributes the software with or without changes, must pass along the freedom to further copy and change it.
23 F/OSS licenses by subject Software licenses: The majority of F/OSS Licenses are applicable to software only. They use terminology and concepts specific for the IT domain. Content licenses: Open Source ideas are also applied to copyrightable subject matter, such as texts, music and other artistic works. Creative Commons is the example. Both: Some licenses, such as Academic Free License (AFL) and the Open Software License (OSL) are neutral with regard to subject matter criterion, as can be applied both to software and content.
24 Copyleft and Reciprocity Copyleft is a play on the word copyright created by the authors of the GNU GPL in order to acknowledge a radical departure from traditional software licensing models. The rule of copyleft is that, while redistributing copies of or derivative works from a program, one cannot put restrictions other than imposed by the initial licensor. Some scholars prefer the term reciprocity to the term copyleft in order to emphasize that the fundamental software freedoms are granted to a licensee upon condition that he/she does likewise in case of redistribution of copies or modified version of licensed software.
25 F/OSS licenses by degree of freedom Copyleft (or Reciprocal) Licenses GPL is the best example. There is also a distinction between strong and weak copyleft licenses. LGPL is a weak copyleft license. Permissive Licenses Lets anyone to take the work for any purpose, including for creating proprietary programs, without obligation to add anything to said public commons.
26 GPL and LGPL The GNU General Public License (GPL): Copyright notice must be attached User can modify the code User can create derivative works User cannot ask money for redistribution of the software code, part or whole User cannot create binary applications, all source code must be distributed with the executable The GNU Library or "Lesser" Public License (LGPL) User can ask money for his/her derivative works User can distribute his/her works in binary
27 Philosophy of MIT and BSD licenses MIT and BSD licenses are ideal for situations in which you want wide deployment of your ideas and do not care whether this results in open source software or proprietary software.
28 F/OSS licences by origin Academic Licenses Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) license, published by University of California, is the first and most popular academic/permissive license. Community licenses originate from popular Open Source communities, generally permissive, such as Apache Software. Companies licenses The first examples of this kind of F/OSS licenses are the Netscape and the Mozilla Public License (MPL). Apple, Sun and Nokia are examples.
29 Taxonomy of F/OSS licenses by OSI License that are popular and widely used or with strong communities Apache License, 2.0, GNU General Public License (GPL) and GNU Library or "Lesser" General Public License (LGPL), New and Simplified BSD licenses, MIT license, Mozilla Public License 1.1 (MPL), Eclipse Public License, Common Development and Distribution License Special purpose licenses Educational Community License, NASA Open Source Agreement 1.3 Other/Miscellaneous licenses Open Software License
30 Taxonomy of F/OSS licensescontinued Licenses that are redundant with more popular licenses Non-reusable licenses Superseded licenses Licenses that have been voluntarily retired Uncategorized Licenses GPLv3 and LGPLv3
31 Choosing a license Do I agree to open the source code? Do I allow others to modify my source code? Can my program be used with proprietary software? Do I want modifications to be published as open source? Under the same license? Can others merge my code wih closed software?
32 Comparison of licenses Licesnse Proprietary Software linking Distribution of the Work Redistributing with changes Compatible with GNU GPL GPL Not allowed Not allowed with not GPL compatible LGPL Allowed Allowed with restrictions Only if the derivative is GNU GPL Only if the derivative is GNU LGPL or GNU GPL BSD Allowed Allowed Allowed The original BSD is not compatible. MIT Allowed Allowed Allowed Yes Yes Yes
33 Open standards
34 Definitions Not easy to define! ITU-T defines it as: standards made available to the general public and are developed (or approved) and maintained via a collaborative and consensus driven process. "Open Standards" facilitate interoperability and data exchange among different products or services and are intended for widespread adoption. Wikipedia: publicly available specifications for achieving a specific task.
35 Some main principles* 1. Everyone should be free to implement open standards in both proprietary and open source software. 2. Open standards should be available to everyone on royalty free terms. 3. Open standards should be developed using a collaborative, balanced, and consensus based approval process. 4. Open standards should be developed under formal and binding commitments for the disclosure and licensing of copyrights and patent claims. 5. Open standards should be made available under reasonable reciprocal licenses that require licensees to share under the same terms their own patent claims reading on the standard. 6. The specifications for open standards should be available to everyone on open source copyright license terms. * Lawrence Rosen, "Defining Open Standards.
36 Examples of open standards IP or Internet Protocol for transferring packets of data. HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and Extensible HTML (XHTML) by W3C for structured hyperlinked document formatting. ODF (Open Document Format) by OASIS for office document formats.
37 The transformation of OSS Brian Fitzgerald, MIS Quarterly, 2006
38 Motivation The OSS phenomenon has been transformed into a more mainsteam and commercially viable form, labelled as OSS 2.0. In this article OSS 2.0 is described and differences with traditional FOSS are discussed.
39 Development lifecycle FOSS Planning: Concatenated and performed typically by a single developer or a small core group Analysis: part of conventional agreeupon knowledge in software development Design: firmly based on principles of modularity to accomplish separation of concerns Implementation: Code Review Pre-commit test Fast development release Parallel debugging Production release (planning, analysis and design phases are done by one person/small group who serves as a tail-light to follow in the bazaar) OSS 2.0 Planning: Purposive strategies by major players trying to gain competitive advantage Analysis and design: more complex in spread to vertical domains where business requirements not universally understood Implementation: sub-phases as with FOSS, but to overall development process becomes less bazaar-like Increasingly, developers being paid to work on open source
40 The transformation FOSS Product domain: Horizontal infrastructure (operating systems, utilities, compilers, DBMS, web and print server) Primary business strategy: Value-added service-enabling Loss-leader/market-creating OSS 2.0 Product domain: More visible applications in vertical domains Primary business strategy: Value-added service Market-creating (loss-leader; dual product/licensing, cost reduction) Leveraging community development Leveraging the open source brand
41 The transformation- continued FOSS Product support: Fairly chaotic much reliance on email lists/bulletin boards, or on support provided by specialized software firms Licensing: GPL, LGPL, Artistic License, BSD, and emergence of commercially oriented licenses The same rights to subsequent users - so-called copyleft - for new distributions OSS 2.0 Product support: Customers willing to pay for a professional, whole-product approach Licensing: Plethora of licenses (85 now validated by OSI or FSF) Corporate-style licenses are central to OSS 2.0
42 Key issues for research and practice Key issues for research and practice Research Transferring lessons from open source development to conventional development (inner source) - Offshoring globally distributed software development - Open code-sharing, large-scale peer-review, Expanded role of users and altered user-developer relationship Elaboration of business models Derivation of appropriate TCO models Practice Achieving balance between value-for-money versus acceptable community values Implementing the whole-product approach Stimulating development in vertical domains Safeguarding against IPR infringement