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As in my article about Preventing Software Piracy, I have covered how people can Make use of Free and Open Source software as alternatives to the premium and proprietary software.

While the term FOSS stands for Free and Open Source Software, both Free and Open Source relate to two separate Advocacy Groups. The word Free relates to the Free Software Foundation (http://www.fsf.org) started by Richard Stallman in 4th October 1985. The term however originated from GNU (http://www.gnu.org) the Free Operating system that was introduced by him as a FREE alternative to UNIX. GNU was later on adopted by Linus Torvalds to give rise to GNU Linux. Where as the word Open Source related to the Open Source Initiative (http://www.opensource.org)

Assumptions of Common Individuals

However common individuals are still unaware of what exactly is Free and Open Source. There are many assumptions as:

Free software means nothing but Freeware that is a free of charge software
Open Source means a software that is Free of Charge
Open Source means a Software that can be customized by the customer without approaching the vendor
Open Source means a Software that we can change in such a way that we can replace the Software’s logo with Our’s

While there are many such assumptions, there is no clear and solid definition (that is not misleading) for Free and Open Source. Free and Open Source are two separate groups, with a common Ideology i.e. Provide a non proprietary Software Solution.

How is then a Free Software different from Open Source Software?

The Free Software Foundation had initially released one Single Software License named GNU GPL (GNU General Public License) http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

However the terms of FREE License shattered the minds who thought that the Term FREE was ambiguous and it may make professionals uncomfortable in the software trade in terms of the Rights and Freedom that they would transfer to their end users.

This gave rise to differences in understandings and so a new group Open Source Initiative was formed. Its like two political parties aiming towards same goal with different policies, as stated in http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html

So What exactly is all this fuss about FREE?

Free Software in terms of FSF means a Software that is Free to use, distribute, modify and share with the world without the Fear of someone questioning you. So this Free actually means FREEDOM. In terms of price, the Software License would not Cost you. So the free of charge applies here, in terms of Software License. No CD Keys or Serial Numbers involved.

However you indeed cannot expect the Services for Free. Such services cover:

Distribution Media such as Internet, CDs/DVDs and other Storage Devices
Efforts and Consultancy involved in Customizing the Free Software
Costs involving the technical support services, such as Installation, troubleshooting, etc.

All these services indeed are not Free of charge.

So there is only one license Governing Free Software?

As stated earlier, the base license for Free Software is GNU GPL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html). However later on to make the software business comfortable many variants of GPL were introduced with the same principle, that the Software shall remain unrestricted. Some people argue that no Free License is 100% unrestrictive. There are some or other restrictions that a Common Individual may over see leading to legal pursuits. As to some extent this indeed is true. The OSI on other hand has extended the number of licenses (http://opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical) which seem to include even the So called Open Source Licenses from the most popular Proprietary Vendors. This has been argued of being favoring the Non Free software activities in a disguise of being Open Source (in turn pointing to Free).

So what can we conclude?

The conclusion is simple. FOSS has provided alternatives for Expensive Restrictive Software. Imagine that you pay for a software, but still the vendor tells you that you still do not own that software, rather you have only paid for the permission to use the software. What worse is that the vendors also (forcefully) asks you to permit them to collect Your Related Information from the System where the software is installed. You cannot share the software across other terminal, or else you will be called Pirate.

Do we really deserve this treatment in spite of paying a hefty amount? FOSS on other hand helps us get rid of such restrictions and actually OWN the piece of software FREE of Worries. A free software is ours as we can use, share, reverse engineer or even customize it as per our needs without accounting to anyone. However it is also true that to distribute as a modified product care is needed to first go through the License under which the so called Free or Open Source Software is released.

Rest assured, at least we have optimal options to spare our pockets from unnecessary Licensing Cost.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 22nd, 2011 at 11:59 am and is filed under Free and Open Source. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.