White Blue and Lightnings

Introduction
to Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)

By Dong B. CalmadaPANACeA FOSS Training3 February 2010Bangkok, Thailand

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Outline

Learning Objectives

FOSS Defined

Brief Background of FOSS

Linux Distributions Timeline

Some Benefits of FOSS

Some Equivalents to Proprietary Softwares/Applications

When Does One Use FOSS?

Conclusion

Objectives

For participants to:Explain what FOSS means.

Understand a brief history of FOSS.

Appreciate some of the benefits of FOSS.

Know FOSS equivalents to proprietary softwares/applications

FOSS defined

Free and Open Source SoftwareFree SoftwareOpen Source SoftwareSoftware considered to be alternative to a proprietary oneFor example: Mozilla Firefox as alternative to Internet Explorer; OpenOffice to Microsoft Office; GIMP to Photoshop.

Proprietary denotes a software user's lack of freedom to study, modify and redistribute the software

Brief Background of FOSS

Brief Background of FOSS (2)

1960s to 70s Software sharing culture in US labs (Stanford, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, MIT)

1976 Bill Gates' Open Letter to Hobbyists advocating that software should be paid for, including royalties

Early 80s LISP programming language was taken by MIT, to the dismay of hackers.

January 1984 Richard Stallman quit job at MIT. Started to worked on GNU, a set of programming tools.

Brief Background of FOSS (3)

1986 Free Software Foundation was born. To promote 'free software' and the GNU project.

1990 Bringing 'free software' to the corporate world with Cygnus.

1991 Linus Torvalds distributed a Unix-like kernel and encouraged everyone to help improve it. The kernel was later named Linux and then integrated with GNU into an operating system called GNU/Linux.

Brief Background of FOSS (4)

1992 Xfree86 was born, the start of bringing GNU/Linux to the desktop level.

1993 Debian and Slackware as implementations of GNU/Linux were born.

1994 Apache, the now popular web server system, was born.

1995 Red Hat was born.

1995 Codebase of Unix incorporated into systems such as FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD.

Brief Background of FOSS (5)

1996 KDE as desktop environment was born.

1997 GNU/Linux grabbed the 25% share of the server market and grew at 25% per year.

1997 GNOME desktop manager was born.

1998 Netscape released Netscape Navigator code base under open source. This paved the way for development of Mozilla Firefox.

Brief Background of FOSS (6)

1998 The term 'open source' was coined. Led to the formation of Open Source Initiative and formulation of open source definition.

1999 Red Hat was transformed into a corporation. Other corporations were established around selling Linux: not charging for the software but for the support services.

Linux Distro
Timeline

Timeline
beginning
with 1992

Major distributions
that started it all:
Debian, Slackware
and Red Hat

Linux Distro
Timeline

Timeline
beginning
with 1992

Major distributions
that started it all:
Debian, Slackware
and Red Hat

Benefits of FOSS

Economy and affordability No license and maintenance fees for softwaresLower total cost of ownership (TCO). 2002 Study: Cost of running Linux is 40% that of Microsoft Windows.

There are Linux distributions that can run in low-end machines.

Stability and SecurityData integrity No viruses

Basic security mechanisms are built-in out of the box (compared to Windows' earlier versions)

Benefits of FOSS (2)

Open standardsUse of internationally recognized standards that allow portability or interoperability (e.g., Open Document Format)

Promotion of transparency

Adaptability Can be modified to suit a particularly locality

Cooperation/collaboration for quality software - With enough eyeballs, bugs are shallow

Benefits of FOSS (3)

User freedoms Freedom to use, study, modify and distribute a particular software (through the GPL and open source licenses)

Some FOSS Equivalents to Proprietary Softwares

CategoryProprietaryFOSS

OfficeMicrosoft Office, iWorkOpenOffice, KOffice, Abiword, Gnumeric, Lotus Symphony

Desktop PublishingAdobe PageMakerScribus

Image Manipulation/Graphics ProductionAdobe PhotoshopGIMP, Inkscape

EmailMicrosoft Outlook, Outlook ExpressThunderbird

Web BrowserInternet ExplorerFirefox

Voice Over IPSkypeEkiga

DatabaseMicrosoft Access, SQL ServerOpenOffice Base, PostgreSQL, MySQL

Media PlayerMicrosoft Media Player, Power DVDTotem, VLC, Mplayer

ChatYahoo MessengerPidgin, Empathy

Video EditingAdobe Premier, Final CutCinelerra, Kino

When Does One Use FOSS?

Using Linux or BSD through a distribution (e.g., Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, FreeBSD)

Using FOSS applications in a proprietary operating system. For example, using OpenOffice for Windows or Mac; using Thunderbird instead of Microsoft Outlook

Using a Linux distribution as guest operating system in Windows or Mac (through a virtual manager).

Using cross-platform applications. For example, Apache for web service, mysql for database, PHP for web programming.

When Does One Use FOSS? (2)

Three B'sOperating systemDesktop ApplicationsStrengthsLimitations

But My WorldWindowsFOSS Applications- Familiarity with Windows- Not insulated from inherent weaknesses of Windows

Best of Both Worlds- Dual Boot
- Virtual Machine: One OS is treated as guestFOSS Applications- Familiarity with Windows while learning Linux Desktop
- Better if the main OS is Linux- Requires high-end machine
- Complex setup, requiring networking skills

Brave New WorldLinuxFOSS Applications- Total independence from Windows
- Politically-correct technology use- Steep learning curve about Linux

Conclusion

Using FOSS is cool! It is politically correct (user freedoms) and strategic (mainly business-wise) while working around the policy limits in particular localities/countries.

But FOSS is not perfect! Learning curve is steep and requires user-level support on tap.

Holding hands together for FOSS!Hand holding to make FOSS flourish!

Thank you!

Notes and References

This presentation was made using OpenOffice.org Impress.

This presentation is an improvement of previous ones I wrote and used in other events.

Linux distro timeline: http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20090105

Bill Gates' open letter to hobbyists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists

Notes and References (2)

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/FOSS_A_General_Introduction/Introduction

Linux TCO: http://www.cioupdate.com/article.php/10493_1477911

Earlier electronic presentations:Intro to FOSS PCTA and Training (Ariel Betan)

Connecting and Empowering Communities with FOSS (Dr. Francis Sarmiento, IOSN)

Notes and References (3)

Latest statistics on distributions: http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20100201