{"id":920,"date":"2016-04-21T23:39:51","date_gmt":"2016-04-22T06:39:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/?p=920"},"modified":"2016-04-22T04:35:20","modified_gmt":"2016-04-22T11:35:20","slug":"so-what-is-this-open-source-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/so-what-is-this-open-source-stuff\/","title":{"rendered":"So What is this Open Source Stuff?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Open-Source-Software-e1461308512662.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-922\" src=\"http:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Open-Source-Software-e1461308512662.jpg\" alt=\"open source software training\" width=\"669\" height=\"376\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As most people know by now, the Linux operating system has been developed under the philosophy of Open Source software originally pioneered by the Free Software Foundation as \u201cfree software\u201d. Nevertheless, many people don\u2019t truly appreciate just what Open Source really is. In this blog post, I\u2019ll offer my perceptions.<\/p>\n<p>Quite simply, Open Source is based on the notion that software should be freely available: to use, to modify, to copy.\u00a0 The idea has been around for some twenty years in the technical culture that built the Internet and the World Wide Web and in recent years has spread to the commercial world.<\/p>\n<p>There are a number of misconceptions about the nature of Open Source software.\u00a0 Perhaps the best way to explain what it is, is to start by talking about what it isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Open Source is not shareware.\u00a0 A precondition for the use of shareware is that you pay the copyright holder a fee.\u00a0 Open source code is freely available and there is no obligation to pay for it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Open Source is not Public Domain.\u00a0 Public domain code, by definition, is not copyrighted.\u00a0 Open Source code is copyrighted by its author who has released it under the terms of an Open Source software license.\u00a0 The copyright owner thus gives you the right to use the code provided you adhere to the terms of the license.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Open Source is not necessarily free of charge.\u00a0 Having said that there\u2019s no obligation to pay for Open Source software doesn\u2019t preclude you from charging a fee to package and distribute it.\u00a0 A number of companies are in the specific business of selling packaged \u201cdistributions\u201d of Linux.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Why would you pay someone for something you can get for free?\u00a0 Presumably because everything is in one place and you can get some support from the vendor.\u00a0 Of course the quality of support greatly depends on the vendor.<\/p>\n<p>So \u201cfree\u201d refers to freedom to use the code and not necessarily zero cost.\u00a0 As someone said a number of years ago, \u201cThink \u2018free speech\u2019, not \u2018free beer\u2019\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Open Source code is:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Subject to the terms of an Open Source license, in many cases the GNU Public License (see below).<\/li>\n<li>Subject to critical peer review.\u00a0 As an Open Source programmer, your code is out there for everyone to see and the Open Source community tends to be a very critical group.\u00a0 Open Source code is subject to extensive testing and peer review.\u00a0 It\u2019s a Darwinian process in which only the best code survives.\u00a0 \u201cBest\u201d of course is a subjective term.\u00a0 It may be the best <em>technical<\/em> solution but it may also be completely unreadable.<\/li>\n<li>Highly subversive.\u00a0 The Open Source movement subverts the dominant paradigm, which says that intellectual property such as software must be jealously guarded so you can make a lot of money off of it.\u00a0 In contrast, the Open Source philosophy is that software should be freely available to everyone for the maximum benefit of society.\u00a0 Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, is particularly vocal in advocating that software should not have owners (see Appendix C).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In the early years of the Open Source movement, Microsoft and other proprietary software vendors saw it as a serious threat to their business model.\u00a0 Microsoft representatives went so far as to characterize Open Source as \u201cun-American\u201d.\u00a0 A Microsoft executive publicly stated in 2001 that &#8220;open source is an intellectual property destroyer. I can&#8217;t imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In recent years however, leading software vendors, including Microsoft, have embraced the Open Source movement. Many even give their programmers and engineers company time to contribute to the Open Source community.\u00a0 And it\u2019s not just charity, it\u2019s good business!<\/p>\n<p>So what is an Open Source license? Most End User License Agreements (EULA) for software are specifically designed to restrict what you are allowed to do with the software covered by the license.\u00a0 Typical restrictions prevent you from making copies or otherwise redistributing it.\u00a0 You are often admonished not to attempt to \u201creverse-engineer\u201d the software.<\/p>\n<p>By contrast, an Open Source license is intended to guarantee your rights to use, modify and copy the subject software as much as you\u2019d like.\u00a0 Along with the rights comes an obligation.\u00a0 If you modify and subsequently distribute software covered by an Open Source license, you are obligated to make available the modified source code under the same terms.\u00a0 The changes become a \u201cderivative work\u201d which is also subject to the terms of the license.\u00a0 This allows other users to understand the software better and to make further changes if they wish.<\/p>\n<p>Arguably the best-known, and most widely used, Open Source license is the GNU General Public License (GPL) first released by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) in 1989.\u00a0 The Linux kernel is licensed under the GPL.\u00a0 But the GPL has a problem that makes it unworkable in many commercial situations.\u00a0 Software that does nothing more than <em>link<\/em> to a library released under the GPL is considered a derivative work and is therefore subject to the terms of the GPL and must be made available in source code form. Software vendors who wish to maintain their applications as proprietary have a problem with that.<\/p>\n<p>To get around this, and thus promote the development of Open Source libraries, the Free Software Foundation came up with the \u201cLibrary GPL\u201d.\u00a0 The distinction is that a program linked to a library covered by the LGPL is not considered a derivative work and so there\u2019s no requirement to distribute the source, although you must still make available the source to the library itself.<\/p>\n<p>Subsequently, the LGPL became known as the \u201cLesser GPL\u201d because it offers less freedom to the user.\u00a0 So while the LGPL makes it possible to develop proprietary products using Open Source software, the FSF encourages developers to place their libraries under the GPL in the interest of maximizing openness.<\/p>\n<p>At the other end of the scale is the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) license, which predates the GPL by some 12 years.\u00a0 It \u201csuggests\u201d, but does not require, that source code modifications be returned to the developer community and it specifically allows derived products to use other licenses, including proprietary ones.<\/p>\n<p>Other licenses\u2014and there are quite a few\u2014fall somewhere between these two poles. The Mozilla Public License (MPL) for example, developed in 1998 when Netscape made its browser open-source, contains more requirements for derivative works than the BSD license, but fewer than the GPL or LGPL.\u00a0 The Eclipse Public License (EPL) specifically allows \u201cplug-ins\u201d to remain proprietary, but still requires that modifications to Eclipse itself be Open Source. The Open Source Initiative (OSI), a non-profit group that certifies licenses meeting its definition of Open Source, currently lists 79 certified licenses on its website.<\/p>\n<p>You may tempted to think that the GPL is just an academic exercise. Nobody takes it seriously, right? Wrong! There are people, the \u201cGPL police\u201d if you will, some of whom have way too much time on their hands, and they take the GPL very seriously. They will \u201cout\u201d anyone who doesn\u2019t play by the rules and there are examples of vendors who have been taken to court as a result.<\/p>\n<p>Bottom line; if you\u2019re concerned about keeping your code proprietary, be very careful about where your models come from.\u00a0 Don\u2019t blindly copy large chunks of code that is identified as GPL Use the code as a model and write your own. If your product is going to incorporate Open Source code, you\u00a0 may want to consult an attorney who specializes in intellectual property law related to Open Source.<\/p>\n<p>Well, this has been a brief personal tour through the world of Open Source software. Not surprisingly, there are a lot of other resources out there on the web. Just google \u201copen source software\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>This article by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.intellimetrix.us\" target=\"_blank\">Doug Abbott<\/a> is on Open Source Software.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As most people know by now, the Linux operating system has been developed under the philosophy of Open Source software originally pioneered by the Free Software Foundation as \u201cfree software\u201d. Nevertheless, many people don\u2019t truly appreciate just what Open Source really is. In this blog post, I\u2019ll offer my perceptions. Quite simply, Open Source is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[149],"tags":[154,48,38,150,155,153,152],"class_list":["post-920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-source-software","tag-is-open-source-free","tag-linux","tag-open-source","tag-open-source-technology","tag-what-is-op","tag-what-is-open-source-code","tag-what-is-open-source-software"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":923,"href":"https:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions\/923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gogotraining.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}