In our article about Preventing Software Piracy, we 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 on 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. Whereas the term Open Source was defined by the Open Source Initiative (http://www.opensource.org)
Assumptions of the General Public
General Public, who are still unaware of what exactly is Free and Open Source perceive these assumptions, such 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 Ours
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) https://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html
However, the terms of Free License motivated those, who thought, that the Term “Free” was ambiguous. Such that it might make the professionals and organizations, uncomfortable in terms of transferring the Rights and Freedom to their end users in a software trade.
This gave rise to differences in understandings within the community, and so a new group named Open Source Initiative was established. It’s like two social organizations, aiming towards the same goal, with different policies, as stated in http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html
So, what exactly goes around in Free Software?
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. Thus the phrase “free of charge” applies for Software License. No Digital Rights Management or Serial Numbers involved. But, you indeed cannot always expect the associated Services for Free. Such services cover:
- Distribution Media such as Internet and other Storage Devices
- Efforts and Consultancy involved in Installation, Deployment and Customizing the Free Software
- Costs involving the technical support and other services
- All these services indeed are not Free of charge
Licenses Governing the Free And Open Source Software
As stated earlier, the base license for Free Software is GNU GPL. Later on, to make the software business comfortable, many variants of GPL were introduced, with the same principle, of making the Software unrestricted. Some people argue that no Free License is 100% unrestrictive. There are some or other restrictions, that General Public may oversee, leading to legal pursuits.
At some extent, this indeed is true. The OSI on other hand, has extended the number of licenses (https://opensource.org/licenses/category) which also include the Open Source Licenses from the most popular Proprietary Vendors. This has been argued for being favoring the Non-Free software activities, in a disguise of being Open Source.
Conclusion
The conclusion is simple. FOSS has provided alternatives for the Expensive Restrictive Software. Imagine, that you pay for a software, but still the vendor notifies you, that you do not own the software, rather you have only paid for the permission to use the software.
Furthermore, what turns out to be worse, is that the vendors also, asks you to permit them to collect Your Related Information from the System, where the software is installed. You cannot copy the software across other terminals, or else you will be accused of Piracy. It is argued as to whether we really deserve this treatment, in-spite of paying a hefty amount for buying a software license?
FOSS otherwise, helps us get rid of such restrictions, and actually Own the piece of software Free of Worries. A copy of 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 glance through the Terms of License under, which the so called Free or Open Source Software is released.