FP 501 OPEN SOURCE OPERATING SYSTEM

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE (OSS) TECHNOLOGY

CHAPTER SUMMARY

By the end of this chapter, students will be able to:• Define OSS• Describe the history of OSS• State various OSS web resources• Define open standards• State the main principles of open standards• Identify OSS licenses• Describe various OSI Certified OSS licenses• Identify the application software in OSS to perform some common applications

1.1 Define OSS

• Software licensed to users with these freedoms:– to run the program for any purpose,– to study and modify the program, and– to freely redistribute copies of either the original or

modified program (without royalties, etc.) • Original term: “Free software”• Open Source Software (OSS) generally refers to software for

which the source code is available and which the licensing scheme permits the user to modify it and redistribute it in modified or unmodified form.

• Open source software is software that is subject to an open source license.

1.2 History of OSS• Hardware-centric free software (50s, 60s):– SHARE (A user group for the IBM 701)– DECUS (Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) Users Group)

• In 1969 the US Department of Justice charged IBM with destroying businesses by bundling free software with IBM hardware. As a result of this suit, IBM unbundled its software; that is, software became independent products separate from hardware.

• Bill Gate’s 1976 “Open Letter to Hobbyists”:– what hackers called “sharing” was, in his words, “stealing”

1.2 History of OSS

• 1983, Richard Matthew Stallman launched the GNU Project to write a complete free operating system

• 1989, some GNU developers formed the company Cygnus Solutions.

• The GNU project's kernel, later called "GNU Hurd", was continually delayed, but most other components were completed by 1991. Some of these, especially the GNU Compiler Collection, had become market leaders in their own right. The GNU Debugger and GNU Emacs were also notable successes.

• The Linux kernel, started by Linus Torvalds, was released as freely modifiable source code in 1991

• Torvalds licence wasn't exactly a free software licence, but with version 0.12 of the kernel in February 1992, he relicensed the project under the GNU General Public License.

GNU PROJECT: TIMELINE

“GNU's Not Unix!", chosen because GNU's design is Unix-like, but differs from Unix by being free software and containing no Unix code.

1.4 Open Standards definition

• The term “open standard” has been used recently to describe a standard that may be copied, used and distributed for no fee and/or whose embedded technology is irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.

1.5 Open Standards main principles

1) Availability• Open Standards are available for all to read and

implement.

2) Maximize End-User Choice• Open Standards create a fair, competitive market for

implementations of the standard. They do not lock the customer in to a particular vendor or group.

1.5 Open Standards main principles

3) No Royalty• Open Standards are free for all to implement, with no

royalty or fee. Certification of compliance by the standards organization may involve a fee.

4) No Discrimination• Open Standards and the organizations that administer

them do not favor one implementer over another for any reason other than the technical standards compliance of a vendor's implementation. Certification organizations must provide a path for low and zero-cost implementations to be validated, but may also provide enhanced certification services.

1.5 Open Standards main principles5) Extension or Subset• Implementations of Open Standards may be extended, or

offered in subset form. However, certification organizations may decline to certify subset implementations, and may place requirements upon extensions.

6) Predatory Practices• Open Standards may employ license terms that protect

against subversion of the standard by embrace-and-extend tactics.

• The licenses attached to the standard may require the publication of reference information for extensions, and a license for all others to create, distribute, and sell software that is compatible with the extensions. An Open Standard may not otherwise prohibit extensions.

1.6 Example of Open Standards

1) Availability• Open Standards are available for all to read and implement. Thus:- The best practice is for the standards text and reference

implementation to be available for free download via the Internet.

2) Maximize End-User Choice• Open Standards create a fair, competitive market for

implementations of the standard. Thus:- They must allow a wide range of implementations, by businesses,

academia, and public projects.- They must support a range of pricing from very expensive to zero-

price.

1.6 Example of Open Standards

3) No Royalty• Open Standards are free for all to implement, with no

royalty or fee. Certification of compliance by the standards organization may have a fee. Thus:

- Patents embedded in standards must be licensed royalty-free, with non-discriminatory terms.

- Certification programs should include a low or zero cost self-certification, but may include higher-cost programs with enhanced branding.

1.7 OSS Licenses

• License:- Grants permission to use a copyrighted work- Can grant any or all of the rights associated with copyright- Can impose other restrictions, such as type or place or

usage, or duration of the license- Does not transfer ownership of the copyright

• An open source licensor must give the licensee certain rights to be considered open source

• Basically, the licensee has the right to use, modify or distribute the software, and the right to access the source code.

1.7 OSS Licenses

• Types of licenses:1) The GPL/ communities type of licenses2) The BSD/academic family of licenses3) The Mozilla/corporate type licenses4) Other open source licenses5) Traditional proprietary licenses6) Shareware/freeware7) Public domain (not a license, but a way of accessing software)

1.8 OSI Certified OSS Licenses

• OSI????- The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is the de facto standards body

for open source software. - It determines what open source means, and approves licenses

as being open source• OSI certified OSS Licenses:1) LGPL (GNU Lesser General Public License)2) BSD License3) MIT License4) Mozilla License

OSI Certified Open Source Software licenses

1) LGPL ( GNU Lesser General Public License)• The GNU Lesser General Public License (formerly the GNU Library General

Public License) or LGPL is a free software license published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF).

• It allow anybody to:

➢ use the software at no charge, without any limitations,

➢ copy, and distribute or sell unmodified copies of the software in the source or binary form,

➢ use the software with propriatory (e.g., your own) modifications, free of charge, as long as you do not distribute or sell the modified version,

➢ modify, and distribute or sell a modified version of the software as long as the source code is included and licenced on the same terms as the original you received (the GPL),

➢ sell support for the software, without any limitations.

2) BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution License)

• The phrase BSD licenses represents a family of permissive free software licenses. A permissive free software license is a free software license that applies to an otherwise copyrighted work

• The original was used for the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), a Unix-like operating system after which the license is named.

• The original owners of BSD were the Regents of the University of California because BSD was first written at the University of California, Berkeley.

• The licenses have fewer restrictions on distribution compared to other free software licenses such as the GNU General Public License

3) MIT license• The MIT License is a free software license originating at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), used by the MIT X Consortium.

• It is a permissive license, meaning that it permits reuse within proprietary software on the condition that the license is distributed with that software.

• The license is also GPL-compatible, meaning that the GPL permits combination and redistribution with software that uses the MIT License.

4) Mozilla Public License

• The Mozilla Public License (MPL) is a free and open source software license.

• The MPL is the license for the Mozilla Application Suite, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird and other Mozilla software.

• The MPL has been adapted by others as a license for their software, most notably Sun Microsystems.

1.9 OSS common application software1) Office application – presentation, database, etc• OpenOffice.org, Koffice, LibreOffice

2) Internet application• Mozilla Firefox, Amaya, Arora, Flock

3) Email application• Zimbra, Spicebird, Mozilla Thunderbird, K-9

4) Graphics application• GIMP, Krita, Paint.NET, Pixen

5) Entertainment application• Miro, Songbird, Flare 0.15