Free and open-source software

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"FLOSS", "FOSS", and "Free and Open-source" redirect here. For hardware, see Open-
source hardware. For other uses, see Foss (disambiguation) and Floss (disambiguation).

A screenshot of Free and Open-source software (FOSS): Linux Mint running the Xfce
desktop environment, Firefox, a calculator program, the built-in calendar, Vim, GIMP, and
VLC media player

Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software that can be classified as both free
software and open-source software.[a] That is, anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study,
and change the software in any way, and the source code is openly shared so that people are
encouraged to voluntarily improve the design of the software.[3] This is in contrast to
proprietary software, where the software is under restrictive copyright licensing and the
source code is usually hidden from the users.

FOSS maintains the software user's civil liberty rights (see the Four Essential Freedoms,
below). Other benefits of using FOSS can include decreased software costs, increased
security and stability (especially in regard to malware), protecting privacy, education, and
giving users more control over their own hardware. Free and open-source operating systems
such as Linux and descendants of BSD are widely utilized today, powering millions of
servers, desktops, smartphones (e.g. Android), and other devices.[4][5] Free-software licenses
and open-source licenses are used by many software packages. The free-software movement
and the open-source software movement are online social movements behind widespread
production and adoption of FOSS.

Contents
 1 Overview
o 1.1 Free software
o 1.2 Open source
 2 History
 3 Usage
o 3.1 FOSS benefits over proprietary software
o 3.2 Drawbacks compared to proprietary software
o 3.3 Adoption by governments
o 3.4 Adoption by supranational unions and international organizations
 4 Production
 5 Issues and incidents
 o 5.1 GPLv3 controversy
o 5.2 Skewed prioritization, ineffectiveness and egoism of developers
o 5.3 Commercial ownership of open-source software
o 5.4 Legal cases
 6 As part/driver of a new socio-economic model
 7 See also
 8 Notes
 9 References
o 9.1 Sources
 10 Further reading

Overview
Further information: Alternative terms for free software

"Free and open-source software" (FOSS) is an umbrella term for software that is
simultaneously considered both Free software and open-source software. FOSS (free and
open-source software) allows the user to inspect the source code and provides a high level of
control of the software's functions compared to proprietary software. The term "free
software" does not refer to the monetary cost of the software at all, but rather whether the
license maintains the software user's civil liberties ("free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free
beer”).[3] There are a number of related terms and abbreviations for free and open-source
software (FOSS or F/OSS), or free/libre and open-source software (FLOSS or F/LOSS—
FLOSS is the FSF-preferred term).[6]

Although there is almost a complete overlap between free-software licenses and open-source-
software licenses, there is a strong philosophical disagreement between the advocates of these
two positions. The terminology of FOSS or "Free and Open-source software" was created to
be a neutral on these philosophical disagreements between the FSF and OSI and have a single
unified term that could refer to both concepts.[7]

As the Free Software Foundation (FSF) explains the philosophical difference between free
software and open-source software: "The two terms describe almost the same category of
software, but they stand for views based on fundamentally different values. Open-source is a
development methodology; free software is a social movement. For the free-software
movement, free software is an ethical imperative, essential respect for the users' freedom. By
contrast, the philosophy of open-source considers issues in terms of how to make software
“better”—in a practical sense only."[8] In parallel to this the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
considers many free-software licenses to also be open source.[9] These include the latest
versions of the FSF's three main licenses: the GPL, the Lesser General Public License
(LGPL), and the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL).[10]

Free software

Richard Stallman's Free Software Definition, adopted by the Free Software Foundation
(FSF), defines free software as a matter of liberty not price,[11] and it upholds the Four
Essential Freedoms. The earliest-known publication of the definition of his free-software idea
was in the February 1986 edition[12] of the FSF's now-discontinued GNU's Bulletin
publication. The canonical source for the document is in the philosophy section of the GNU
Project website. As of August 2017, it is published there in 40 languages.[13]

Four essential freedoms of Free Software

To meet the definition of "free software", the FSF requires the software's licensing respect the
civil liberties / human rights of what the FSF calls the software user's "Four Essential
Freedoms".[14]

 The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
 The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your
computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for
this.
 The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2).
 The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By
doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes.
Access to the source code is a precondition for this.[14]

Open source

The open-source-software definition is used by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) to determine
whether a software license qualifies for the organization's insignia for Open-source software.
The definition was based on the Debian Free Software Guidelines, written and adapted
primarily by Bruce Perens.[15][16] Perens did not base his writing on the Four Essential
Freedoms of free software from the Free Software Foundation, which were only later
available on the web.[17] Perens subsequently stated that he felt Eric Raymond's promotion of
Open-source unfairly overshadowed the Free Software Foundation's efforts and reaffirmed
his support for Free software.[18] In the following 2000s, he spoke about open source
again.[19][20]

History
Main article: History of free and open-source software
This section appears to contradict the article History of free and open-source
software. Please see discussion on the linked talk page. (June 2015) (Learn how and when
to remove this template message)

In the 1950s through the 1980s, it was common for computer users to have the source code
for all programs they used, and the permission and ability to modify it for their own use.
Software, including source code, was commonly shared by individuals who used computers,
often as public domain software.[21] Most companies had a business model based on hardware
sales, and provided or bundled software with hardware, free of charge.[22]

By the late 1960s, the prevailing business model around software was changing. A growing
and evolving software industry was competing with the hardware manufacturer's bundled
software products; rather than funding software development from hardware revenue, these
new companies were selling software directly. Leased machines required software support
while providing no revenue for software, and some customers who were able to better meet
their own needs did not want the costs of software bundled with hardware product costs. In
United States vs. IBM, filed January 17, 1969, the government charged that bundled software
was anticompetitive.[23] While some software was still being provided without monetary cost
and license restriction, there was a growing amount of software that was only at a monetary
cost with restricted licensing. In the 1970s and early 1980s, some parts of the software
industry began using technical measures (such as distributing only binary copies of computer
programs) to prevent computer users from being able to use reverse engineering techniques to
study and customize software they had paid for. In 1980, the copyright law was extended to
computer programs in the United States[24]—previously, computer programs could be
considered ideas, procedures, methods, systems, and processes, which are not
copyrightable.[25][26]

Early on, closed-source software was uncommon until the mid-1970s to the 1980s, when
IBM implemented in 1983 an "object code only" policy, no longer distributing source
code.[27][28][29]

In 1983, Richard Stallman, longtime member of the hacker community at the MIT Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory, announced the GNU project, saying that he had become frustrated
with the effects of the change in culture of the computer industry and its users.[30] Software
development for the GNU operating system began in January 1984, and the Free Software
Foundation (FSF) was founded in October 1985. An article outlining the project and its goals
was published in March 1985 titled the GNU Manifesto. The manifesto included significant
explanation of the GNU philosophy, Free Software Definition and "copyleft" ideas. The FSF
takes the position that the fundamental issue Free software addresses is an ethical one—to
ensure software users can exercise what it calls "The Four Essential Freedoms".[3]

The Linux kernel, created by Linus Torvalds, was released as freely modifiable source code
in 1991. Initially, Linux was not released under either a Free software or an Open-source
software license. However, with version 0.12 in February 1992, he relicensed the project
under the GNU General Public License.[31]

FreeBSD and NetBSD (both derived from 386BSD) were released as Free software when the
USL v. BSDi lawsuit was settled out of court in 1993. OpenBSD forked from NetBSD in
1995. Also in 1995, The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache, was
released under the Apache License 1.0.

In 1997, Eric Raymond published The Cathedral and the Bazaar, a reflective analysis of the
hacker community and Free software principles. The paper received significant attention in
early 1998, and was one factor in motivating Netscape Communications Corporation to
release their popular Netscape Communicator Internet suite as Free software. This code is
today better known as Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird.

Netscape's act prompted Raymond and others to look into how to bring the FSF's Free
software ideas and perceived benefits to the commercial software industry. They concluded
that FSF's social activism was not appealing to companies like Netscape, and looked for a
way to rebrand the Free software movement to emphasize the business potential of sharing
and collaborating on software source code. The new name they chose was "Open-source",
and quickly Bruce Perens, publisher Tim O'Reilly, Linus Torvalds, and others signed on to
the rebranding. The Open Source Initiative was founded in February 1998 to encourage the
use of the new term and evangelize open-source principles.[32]
While the Open Source Initiative sought to encourage the use of the new term and evangelize
the principles it adhered to, commercial software vendors found themselves increasingly
threatened by the concept of freely distributed software and universal access to an
application's source code. A Microsoft executive publicly stated in 2001 that "Open-source is
an intellectual property destroyer. I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for
the software business and the intellectual-property business."[33] This view perfectly
summarizes the initial response to FOSS by some software corporations.[citation needed] For
many years FOSS played a niche role outside of the mainstream of private software
development. However the success of FOSS Operating Systems such as Linux, BSD and the
companies based on FOSS such as Red Hat, has changed the software industry's attitude and
there has been a dramatic shift in the corporate philosophy concerning the development of
Free and Open-source software (FOSS).[34]

Usage
See also: Linux adoption, Free software § Adoption, and Open-source software § Adoption

FOSS benefits over proprietary software

Personal control, customizability and freedom

See also: Vendor lock-in

Users of FOSS benefit from the Four Essential Freedoms to make unrestricted use of, and to
study, copy, modify, and redistribute such software with or without modification. If they
would like to change the functionality of software they can bring about changes to the code
and, if they wish, distribute such modified versions of the software or often − depending on
the software's decision making model and its other users − even push or request such changes
to be made via updates to the original software.[35][36][37][38][39]

Privacy and security

See also: Open-source software security, Surveillance capitalism, Global surveillance

disclosures (2013–present), and Software update system

Manufacturers of proprietary, closed-source software are sometimes pressured to building in

backdoors or other covert, undesired features into their software.[40][41][42][43] Instead of having
to trust software vendors, users of FOSS can inspect and verify the source code themselves
and can put trust on a community of volunteers and users.[39] As proprietary code is typically
hidden from public view, only the vendors themselves and hackers may be aware of any
vulnerabilities in them[39] while FOSS involves as many people as possible for exposing bugs
quickly.[44][45]

Low costs or no costs

FOSS is often free of charge although donations are often encouraged. This also allows users
to better test and compare software.[39]

Quality, collaboration and efficiency

See also: § Bugs and missing features

FOSS allows for better collaboration among various parties and individuals with the goal of
developing the most efficient software for its users or use-cases while proprietary software is
typically meant to generate profits. Furthermore, in many cases more organizations and
individuals contribute to such projects than to proprietary software.[39] It has been shown that
technical superiority is typically the primary reason why companies choose open source
software.[39]

Drawbacks compared to proprietary software

Security and user-support

See also: Common good, Public participation, and Proactive cyber defence § Measures

According to Linus's law the more people who can see and test a set of code, the more likely
any flaws will be caught and fixed quickly. However, this does not guarantee a high level of
participation. Having a grouping of full-time professionals behind a commercial product can
in some cases be superior to FOSS.[39][44][46]

Furthermore, publicized source code might make it easier for hackers to find vulnerabilities
in it and write exploits. This however assumes that such malicious hackers are more effective
than white hat hackers which responsibly disclose or help fix the vulnerabilities, that no code
leaks or exfiltrations occur and that reverse engineering of proprietary code is a hindrance of
significance for malicious hackers.[44]

Hardware and software compatibility

Further information: Software incompatibility and System requirements

Sometimes, FOSS is not compatible with proprietary hardware or specific software. This is
often due to manufacturers obstructing FOSS such as by not disclosing the interfaces or other
specifications needed for members of the FOSS movement to write drivers for their hardware
− for instance as they wish customers to run only their own proprietary software or as they
might benefit from partnerships.[47][48][49][50][51][52][53][additional citation(s) needed]

Bugs and missing features

See also: § Quality, collaboration and efficiency

While FOSS can be superior to proprietary equivalents in terms of software features and
stability, in many cases FOSS has more unfixed bugs and missing features when compared to
similar commercial software.[54][additional citation(s) needed] This varies per case and usually depends
on the level of interest and participation in a FOSS project. Furthermore, unlike with typical
commercial software missing features and bugfixes can be implemented by any party that has
the relevant motivation, time and skill to do so.[46][additional citation(s) needed]

Less guarantees of development

There is often less certainty in FOSS projects gaining the required resources / participation
for continued development than commercial software backed by companies.[55][additional citation(s)
needed]
However companies also often abolish projects for being unprofitable and often large
companies rely on and hence co-develop open source software.[45]

Missing applications

As the FOSS operating system distributions of Linux has a lower market share of end users
there are also fewer applications available.[56][57]

Adoption by governments

Main article: Adoption of free and open-source software by public institutions

See also: Sovereignty, National security, Cyber emergency response team, and Global public
good
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
Country Description
In 2006, the Brazilian government has simultaneously encouraged the
Brazil distribution of cheap computers running Linux throughout its poorer
communities by subsidizing their purchase with tax breaks.[58]
In April 2008,[59] Ecuador passed a similar law, Decree 1014, designed to
Ecuador
migrate the public sector to Libre Software.[60]
In March 2009, the French Gendarmerie Nationale announced it will
totally switch to Ubuntu by 2015. The Gendarmerie began its transition to
open source software in 2005 when it replaced Microsoft Office with
OpenOffice.org across the entire organization.[61] In September 2012, the
French Prime Minister laid down a set of action-oriented
recommendations about using open-source in the French public
administration.[62] These recommendations are published in a document
based on the works of an inter-ministerial group of experts.[63] This
France document stops some orientations like establishing an actual convergence
on open-source stubs, activating a network of expertise about converging
stubs, improving the support of open-source software, contributing to
selected stubs, following the big communities, spreading alternatives to
the main commercial solutions, tracing the use of open-source and its
effects, developing the culture of use of the open-source licenses in the
developments of public information systems. One of the aim of this
experts groups is also to establish lists of recommended open-source
software to use in the French public administration.[64]
In the German City of Munich, conversion of 15,000 PCs and laptops
from Microsoft Windows-based operating systems to a Debian-based
Linux environment called LiMux spanned the ten years of 2003 to 2013.
Germany
After successful completion of the project, more than 80% of all
computers were running Linux.[65] On November 13, 2017 The Register
reported that Munich is planning to revert to Windows 10 by 2020.[66]
The Government of Kerala, India, announced its official support for FOSS
software in its State IT Policy of 2001,[67][discuss] which was formulated
India
after the first-ever Free software conference in India, Freedom First!, held
in July 2001 in Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala. In 2009, Government of
 Kerala started the International Centre for Free and Open Source Software
(ICFOSS).[68] In March 2015 the Indian government announced a policy
on adoption of FOSS.[69][70]
The Italian military is transitioning to LibreOffice and the Open
Document Format (ODF). The Ministry of Defence will over the next
year-and-a-half install this suite of office productivity tools on some
Italy 150,000 PC workstations - making it Europe’s second largest LibreOffice
implementation. The switch was announced on September 15, 2015, by
the LibreItalia Association.[71] By June 23, 2016, 6 thousand stations have
been migrated.[72] E-learning military platform.[73]
In January 2010, the Government of Jordan announced a partnership with
Ingres Corporation (now named Actian), an open source database
Jordan
management company based in the United States, to promote open-source
software use, starting with university systems in Jordan.[74]
Malaysia launched the "Malaysian Public Sector Open Source Software
Malaysia Program", saving millions on proprietary software licenses until
2008.[75][76]
In 2005 the Government of Peru voted to adopt open source across all its
bodies.[77] The 2002 response to Microsoft's critique is available online. In
the preamble to the bill, the Peruvian government stressed that the choice
Peru
was made to ensure that key pillars of democracy were safeguarded: "The
basic principles which inspire the Bill are linked to the basic guarantees of
a state of law."[78]
In September 2014, the Uganda National Information Technology
Authority (NITA-U) announced a call for feedback on an Open Source
Uganda
Strategy & Policy[79] at a workshop in conjunction with the ICT
Association of Uganda (ICTAU).
In February 2009, the United States White House moved its website to
Linux servers using Drupal for content management.[80] In August 2016,
the United States government announced a new federal source code policy
which mandates that at least 20% of custom source code developed by or
for any agency of the federal government be released as open-source
software (OSS).[81] In addition, the policy requires that all source code be
shared between agencies. The public release is under a three-year pilot
program and agencies are obliged to collect data on this pilot to gauge its
United States
performance. The overall policy aims to reduce duplication, avoid vendor
'lock-in', and stimulate collaborative development. A new website
code.gov provides "an online collection of tools, best practices, and
schemas to help agencies implement this policy", the policy
announcement stated. It also provides the "primary discoverability portal
for custom-developed software intended both for Government-wide reuse
and for release as OSS".[81] As yet unspecified OSS licenses will be added
to the code.[82]
In 2004, a law in Venezuela (Decree 3390) went into effect, mandating a
Venezuela two-year transition to open source in all public agencies. As of June 2009,
the transition was still under way.[83][84][needs update]

Adoption by supranational unions and international organizations

"We migrated key functions from Windows to Linux because we needed an operating system
that was stable and reliable -- one that would give us in-house control. So if we needed to
patch, adjust, or adapt, we could."

Official statement of the United Space Alliance, which manages the computer systems for the
International Space Station (ISS), regarding why they chose to switch from Windows to Linux
on the ISS.[85][86]

In 2017, the European Commission stated that "EU institutions should become open source
software users themselves, even more than they already are" and listed open source software
as one of the nine key drivers of innovation, together with big data, mobility, cloud
computing and the internet of things.[87]

Production
See also: Open-source software development
This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (July 2017)

Issues and incidents

GPLv3 controversy

This section provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject.
Please help improve the article by providing more context for the reader. (February
2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

While copyright is the primary legal mechanism that FOSS authors use to ensure license
compliance for their software, other mechanisms such as legislation, patents, and trademarks
have implications as well. In response to legal issues with patents and the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act (DMCA), the Free Software Foundation released version 3 of its GNU Public
License in 2007 that explicitly addressed the DMCA and patent rights.

After the development of the GNU GPLv3 in 2007, the FSF (as the copyright holder of many
pieces of the GNU system) updated many[citation needed] of the GNU programs' licenses from
GPLv2 to GPLv3. On the other hand, the adoption of the new GPL version was heavily
discussed in the FOSS ecosystem,[88] several projects decided against upgrading. For instance
the Linux kernel,[89][90] the BusyBox[91][92] project, AdvFS,[93] Blender,[94] and the VLC media
player decided against adopting the GPLv3.[95]

Apple, a user of GCC and a heavy user of both DRM and patents, switched the compiler in its
Xcode IDE from GCC to Clang, which is another FOSS compiler[96] but is under a permissive
license.[97] LWN speculated that Apple was motivated partly by a desire to avoid GPLv3.[96]
The Samba project also switched to GPLv3, so Apple replaced Samba in their software suite
by a closed-source, proprietary software alternative.[98]

Skewed prioritization, ineffectiveness and egoism of developers

See also: Issue tracking system

Leemhuis criticizes the prioritization of skilled developers who − instead of fixing issues in
popular applications and desktop environments − create new, mostly redundant software to
gain fame and fortune.[99]

He also criticizes notebook manufacturers for optimizing their own products only privately or
creating workarounds instead of helping fix the actual causes of the many issues with Linux
on notebooks such as the unnecessary power consumption.[99]

Commercial ownership of open-source software

Mergers have affected major open-source software. Sun Microsystems (Sun) acquired
MySQL AB, owner of the popular open-source MySQL database, in 2008.[100]

Oracle in turn purchased Sun in January, 2010, acquiring their copyrights, patents, and
trademarks. Thus, Oracle became the owner of both the most popular proprietary database
and the most popular open-source database. Oracle's attempts to commercialize the open-
source MySQL database have raised concerns in the FOSS community.[101] Partly in response
to uncertainty about the future of MySQL, the FOSS community forked the project into new
database systems outside of Oracle's control. These include MariaDB, Percona, and
Drizzle.[102] All of these have distinct names; they are distinct projects and cannot use the
trademarked name MySQL.[103]

Legal cases

Oracle v. Google

In August, 2010, Oracle sued Google, claiming that its use of Java in Android infringed on
Oracle's copyrights and patents. The Oracle v. Google case ended in May 2012, with the
finding that Google did not infringe on Oracle's patents, and the trial judge ruled that the
structure of the Java APIs used by Google was not copyrightable. The jury found that Google
infringed a small number of copied files, but the parties stipulated that Google would pay no
damages.[104] Oracle appealed to the Federal Circuit, and Google filed a cross-appeal on the
literal copying claim.[105]

As part/driver of a new socio-economic model

Main article: Open-source model
See also: Commons-based peer production, Open content, Sharing economy, and Post-
scarcity economy

By defying ownership regulations in the construction and use of information − a key area of
contemporary growth − the Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) movement counters
neoliberalism and privatization in general.[106]

By realizing the historical potential of an "economy of abundance" for the new digital world
FOSS may lay down a plan for political resistance or show the way towards a potential
transformation of capitalism.[106]
According to Yochai Benkler, Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman Professor for Entrepreneurial
Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, free software is the most visible part of a new
economy of commons-based peer production of information, knowledge, and culture. As
examples, he cites a variety of FOSS projects, including both free software and open-
source.[107]

See also

 Free and open-source software portal

 FLOSS Manuals
 FLOSS Weekly
 Free software community
 Free software license
 Graphics hardware and FOSS
 List of free and open source software packages
 List of formerly proprietary software
 Open-source license
 Outline of free software

Notes
1.

1. FOSS is an inclusive term that covers both free software and open-source software,
which despite describing similar development models, have differing cultures and
philosophies.[1] Free refers to the users' freedom to copy and re-use the software. The
Free Software Foundation, an organization that advocates the free software model,
suggests that to understand the concept, one should "think of free as in free speech,
not as in free beer". (See "The Free Software Definition". GNU.org. Retrieved 4
February 2010.) Free software focuses on the fundamental freedoms it gives to users,
whereas open source software focuses on the perceived strengths of its peer-to-peer
development model.[2] FOSS is a term that can be used without particular bias towards
either political approach.

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