Introduction to Open Source
The concept of Free Software and Open Source Software is very important to us. Our business like many others only exists because of the cooperative effort of many thousands of software developers around the world.
These collaborative efforts have been recognised and formalised in a number of concepts. Since our business is built on them and would not exist without them we want to promote and recognise all the work that others have done. Sir Isaac Newton is reported to have said "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." The collaborative efforts in these software projects achieves a similar result.
Among these vital initiatives are the work of the Free Software Foundation, the Open Source Initiative and GPL, the GNU General Public Licence
What is Open Source?
To quote from the Open Source Initiative
“The basic idea behind open source is very simple: When programmers can read, redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves. People improve it, people adapt it, people fix bugs. And this can happen at a speed that, if one is used to the slow pace of conventional software development, seems astonishing.
We in the open source community have learned that this rapid evolutionary process produces better software than the traditional closed model, in which only a very few programmers can see the source and everybody else must blindly use an opaque block of bits.”
“Open source promotes software reliability and quality by supporting independent peer review and rapid evolution of source code. To be OSI certified, the software must be distributed under a license that guarantees the right to read, redistribute, modify, and use the software freely.”
The Free Software Foundation
Most of the software that we supply will have a GPL licence GNU General Public License or perhaps a derivation of it. This licence is the result of the work of the Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation defines the concept of “Free Software” as:
“We maintain this free software definition to show clearly what must be true about a particular software program for it to be considered free software.
Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer.
Free software is a matter of the users freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:
- The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (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 improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms. Thus, you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere. Being free to do these things means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission.”