Free Open Source Software (FOSS): Tenets

High Level Overview of Open Source Software

"Adoption of open-source software is becoming pervasive, with 85% of companies surveyed currently using OSS in their enterprises and the remaining 15% expecting to in the next 12 months" —Gartner, Inc., November 2008

A Brief History of Open Source Software

In an article on the history of open source software, Wikipedia states the free software movement (FSM) began in 1983 when Richard Matthew Stallman initiated the GNU Project, a free software, mass collaboration project.

The free software movement aims to promote the user's rights to access and modify software.

Software libre, open source, and free open source software (FOSS), F/OSS or FLOSS (free/libre/open source software) are terms associated with the free software movement. The meaning of open source now includes Commercial Open Source Software (COSS)

In 1985 Stallman founded the Free Software Foundation (FSF) to promote free open source software, or free computer programs that may be freely modified and shared. The GNU General Public License (GPL), written by Stallman, soon followed and has become the most widely used free software license. The GPL grants recipients of a computer program the rights of the free software definition, using copyleft to preserve the freedoms, even when the work is altered through subtraction or addition. Copyleft, as a concept, is a form of licensing that may be used to modify copyrights for works such as computer software. In essence the author of the work surrenders some but not all rights under copyright law. With copyleft licensing, copyright infringement may be avoided if the user uses the same copyleft scheme. Copyleft licenses are also known as reciprocal or viral licenses.

The GNU operating system, launched in 1984, is a free Unix-like operating system. GNU's design was different from Unix because it was free software and contained no Unix code. In 1992 a third-party Unix-style kernel called Linux completed the free software operating system. By 1998 the term free software was replaced by open source software (OSS), as being clearer and more acceptable to the corporate world. Software developers may publish their software with an open source license permitting anyone to also develop the same software or understand its internal functioning.

In 1998 the Open Source Initiative (OSI), founded by Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens, created their Open Source Definition (OSD) to determine if a specific software license may be considered open source. OSI positioned open source to the business community. The term open source was suggested by Christine Peterson of the Foresight Institute, to remove any confusion for people who thought of free software as anti-commercial. The idea was to create a higher profile to the benefits of freely available source code and to bring major software businesses and other high-tech industries into open source. The definition was based on the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG), conceived by Bruce Perens. The Debian Project developed by volunteers from around the world, was created to determine whether a software license is a free software license and may be included in Debian. Software in the Public Interest owns the Debian trademark.

The 10 Open Source Tenets

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
   The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale
2. Source Code
   The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form. Where some form of a product is not distributed with source code, there must be a well-publicized means of obtaining the source code for no more than a reasonable reproduction cost preferably, downloading via the Internet without charge. The source code must be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program. Deliberately obfuscated source code is not allowed. Intermediate forms such as the output of a preprocessor or translator are not allowed.
3. Derived Works
   The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.
4. Integrity of The Author's Source Code
   The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source code. The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software.
5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
   The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
   The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
7. Distribution of License
   The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by those parties.

   Free Open Source Software:
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8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product
   The rights attached to the program must not depend on the program's being part of a particular software distribution. If the program is extracted from that distribution and used or distributed within the terms of the program's license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the original software distribution.
9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software
   The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source software.
10. License Must Be Technology-Neutral
    No provision of the license may be predicated on any individual technology or style of interface.
    —Open Source Initiative

"Free as in Free Speech"

The open source term was created by a team, consisting of Todd Anderson, Larry Augustin, John Hall, Sam Ockman, Christine Peterson and Eric Raymond, at a strategy session in 1998, in answer to an announcement by Netscape of their source code release for Navigator (as Mozilla). The team wanted to clarify any potential confusion with the word "free".

In 1985 the Free Software Foundation (FSF) defined free to mean "free as in free speech" and not "free as in free beer". Emphasis was made on the freedom to distribute rather than freedom from cost.

1998 saw the forming of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) by Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens. OSI positioned open source to the business community. The term open source was suggested to remove any confusion for those who considered free software as anti-commercial. The idea was to create a higher profile to the benefits of freely available source code and to bring major software businesses and other high-tech industries into open source.

Open Source Code Adoption Movement

A recent article ("Group Urges Obama To Consider Open Source " —Charles Babcock, InformationWeek Government) reported that a group of open source code practitioners have written a letter to President Barak Obama suggesting he require a wide adoption of open source code in the government.

Prompting greater use of open source code in government could lead to new ways "for states and agencies to collaborate together on solutions that ultimately are better than the sum of all the individual efforts. Open source software encourages this type of collaboration by making the results of previous efforts available to others," the letter said.

According to InformationWeek Government, the signers were

• Ross Mason, CTO of MuleSource,
  supplier of the open source Mule enterprise service bus;
• Don Klaiss, CEO of Compiere,
  supplier of open source enterprise resource management;
• Roger Burkhardt, CEO, and Deb Woods, VP of product management, at Ingres,
  supplier of the open source relational database;
• Brian Gentile, CEO of Jaspersoft,
  supplier of open source reporting and business intelligence;
• Bertrand Diard, CEO of Talend,
  supplier of open source integration;
• Javier Soltero, CEO of Hyperic,
  supplier of open source systems management;
• David Christiansen, senior developer, and Stuart Cohen, CEO, of the Collaborative Software Initiative,
  organizer of cross-enterprise development projects;
• Rick Jung, CEO of Medsphere,
  supplier of an open source hospital and patient management system;
• Steven Grandchamp, president of OpenLogic,
  supplier of open source technical support;
• Anthony Gold, president of the Open Solutions Alliance,
  a group of open source companies that certifies their code will work together;
• Scott Sanchez, chief architect of Unisys (NYSE: UIS) Open Source Business;
• Carl Erickson, president of Atomic Object,
  a custom development firm using open source Ruby; and
• Chris Gladwin, CEO of Cleversafe,
  supplier of open source storage systems.

Open Source Software Law Review

Recently the International Free and Open Source Software Law Review (IFOSS L. Rev.) published their first issue. A law journal dedicated to free open source software, attests to the growing social acceptance of this maturing entity.