Copyrights

Copyright is the right of a person to copy a work. This could be a book, a magazine article, a song or whatever. Usually, the author of a work owns the copyright to a work. He's the only one who can legally copy it. He may sell or give away the rights to copy his work under certain conditions. For instance, he may sell "First North American Serial Rights" to a magazine for his novel. This means that the magazine has the right to be the first to "serialize" his novel in their magazine, in North America.

An author of a work can grant a license to someone else that allows them to copy his work. But a license isn't a copyright. The person with the license only has the rights that the copyright holder grants in the license.

The Beginnings of Open Source

Back in the beginning of software writing, programmers didn't really care who copied or modified their source code. In fact, they were gratified that others were interested enough to want to do anything with it. And they were enthusiastic when others modified their code to make it better.

When the Unix operating system was originally written at Bell Labs, the people who worked on it felt much the same way. This is often the way it is in places where pure research takes place. But at some point, AT&T, which owned Bell Labs, decided to make Unix proprietary and stop all the copying and modification.

By this time, various versions of Unix had gotten out to universities and such, and they didn't much care for AT&T's policies. One such university was the University of California at Berkeley. When AT&T took Unix proprietary, they decided to take their "pre-proprietary" code and modify it to come up with their own Unix version, eventually called "Berkeley Standard Distribution" or "BSD".

Eventually, Unix flavors appeared on most major hardware platforms, and each version was proprietary, owned by the company that created it, and suited to run only on their proprietary hardware.

The GNU Project and Free Software Foundation

In the 1980's, Richard Stallman, a former fixture at MIT, became frustrated with the proprietary nature of Unix and software in general. He wanted to come up with a version of Unix that wasn't proprietary. So he started the GNU Project. GNU stands for "GNU's Not Unix", a typical piece recursive hacker humor. The idea behind the GNU Project was to create an operating system (building on the work, but not the code of Unix) which was free, instead of being proprietary.

Because he couldn't find a free compiler to work with, Stallman first wrote a compiler. Then he wrote an editor, now known as Emacs. Eventually, he and others went on to write "free" versions of most of the utilities commonly used in the Unix world. And eventually, the "Free Software Foundation" was formed to support the GNU Project. As time went on, more and more pieces of Unix-like software were created by the GNU Project. The one thing missing was the kernel, the one piece that was necessary to have a complete operating system.

Stallman also consulted with lawyers to come up with a licensing scheme that would force GNU Project software and programs built on it to be free and remain free. By "free", Stallman meant that you could run the program when, where and how you saw fit; that you could modify the program, which meant you had to have access to the source code; and that you had the freedom to distribute copies of the original program and modified versions of it as you saw fit. It's important to understand that Stallman didn't mean "free" as in no money. His license was called the GNU Public License. It's also known as copyleft, a play on "copyright" and another example of hacker humor.

Linux

In 1991, Linus Torvalds, a university student from Finland, decided to build his own operating system (called Linux), eventually based on Unix. Because he did not use any Unix source code, he could do anything he wanted with it. It looked and worked like Unix, but it wasn't the proprietary Unixes that came before. (In effect, Linus "reverse engineered" Unix. Remember that when you hear about legislation which seeks to stop the practice of reverse engineering, like the current UCITA legislation.) What Linus was writing (with the help of many others) was the kernel, the one thing the GNU Project was missing.

The code Linus and others wrote was copyrighted by them, but Linus wanted to make it possible for others to copy, improve and redistribute the code. Linus needed a license that allowed that. He discovered the GNU Public License (GPL) and decided that would be the correct license for the Linux kernel.

Today, a basic Linux distribution is composed of the Linux kernel and software from the GNU Project, as well as a considerable amount of software from other sources. Richard Stallman insists that what we know of as Linux today actually be called "GNU/Linux". But Stallman is most often seen as a radical, and few actually agree with him on this.

Open Source

The Linux kernel and the GNU Project software that goes with it were originally called "free software", because that's what Stallman called them. In a way it's an accurate name. The problem is that the word "free" has multiple meanings in English, one of which is "something which is given or received with no monetary compensation." This meaning is the meaning most people assign to free. But if you've ever bought a Linux distribution, you know that it isn't "free" in this sense. Perhaps more important, things which are "free" in this sense are often seen as having no real worth, or "worthless". This isn't a good thing for Linux or other programs that are licensed this way.

In the late 1990's, worldwide attention began to be focused on Linux and software that ran under it. The "free software" label was becoming a problem because its meaning was confusing. As a result, a group of people in the Linux community came up with the term Open Source to describe Linux and software like it. This avoided the problems with the word "free", but annoyed people like Stallman, who insisted that the word "free" be interpreted in terms of freedom, not money. But Open Source was a good marketing term, and it stuck, especially in the press.

What Open Source Means

Along with the term Open Source, a definition was created for what could be called "Open Source". Remember that "free software" and "Open Source" have nothing to do with copyrights. Authors still own the copyrights to their programs. These terms have to do with the license under which software can be copied and modified. Actually, the Open Source definition describes what a software license must be like to be considered "Open Source". It can be paraphrased as follows (see the exact definition for the "legalese"):

1. You can give away or sell the software by itself or as part of a larger distribution, and you don't have to pay for the privilege.
2. You have to include source code, or allow some easy way to get it.
3. You can modify the software, and you're allowed to distribute them on the same terms as the original license. (Notice you're not forced to, but allowed to.)
4. If the license doesn't allow you to directly modify the source code, it must allow you to use "patch" files instead.
5. No matter who you are, what you believe or what you do, the license applies to you. For example, if you work for an abortion clinic or a "right to life" group, the license can't restrict your use, modification or distribution of the software either way.
6. No one you give or sell the program to has to sign any additional license to have the same rights you do.
7. Even if the software is part of a distribution of software, the license applies only to that piece of software.
8. Conversely, the license can't specify licensing terms for other software that may be included in a distribution.

The GNU Public License (GPL)

The most common Open Source license is the GPL, which is what most of the software on Linux distributions is based on. The GPL fits the definition of and Open Source license, but adds some twists:

1. You must include a notice that there is no warranty on the software.
2. If you change the software, you must say you did so and when.
3. You can't take modifications "private". Modifications must be distributed under the GPL.
4. You can't make a GPL program part of a "proprietary" program.
5. If you sell or give away the program, the recipient can do the same.

Library GNU Public License (LGPL)

The LGPL is derived from the GPL, but applies to software libraries. It allows libraries under its license to be incorporated into proprietary products. You can turn an LGPL'd program into a GPL'd one, but then neither that program nor anything derived from it can be converted back to LGPL.

Other Open Source Licenses

Various other Open Source Licenses exist, most of which are less rigorous than the GPL.

The Artistic License doesn't allow sale of the program, but allows you to add a program to this program and sell the bundle. It also requires that modified software be free, but allows you to add link another program to the original software and take the whole thing "private". Because of its sizable loopholes, the Artistic License is seldom used anymore.

The BSD License is also less restrictive than the GPL, and most notably allows modifications to be taken "private". In fact, you can sell binary versions of the program without source, and under a different license. The Open Source definition does not require that modifications have the same license as the original code.

There are quite a few other variants. You're encouraged to go to http://www.opensource.org to check out the actual definition and copies of many Open Source licenses.

What Does Open Source Mean To Joe L. User?

Open Source software actually means a lot of things to the average user, whether he or she knows it or not.

It means that you can sell or give the software away to anyone you like.

It typically means you don't pay a lot for the software. Anyone else with the same software can give you a copy of it, for that matter.

It means that if something's wrong with the software, you can report it and have it fixed, usually much faster and with less complication than with "commercial" software.

It means no one can take control of the software, "embrace and extend" it to make it incompatible, and then force you to use their version.

It means that usually hundreds of people have seen, pored over, and fixed bugs in the code, making it more stable than much "commercial" code.

What Does Open Source Mean To J. Random Hacker?

J. Random Hacker gets all the benefits of Joe User, and then some:

If you don't like the way the program works, or you want to make it work differently, you're welcome to change it.

You can sell or give away your changed program.

How Does Commercial Software Compare?

Much commercial software is high quality. Some of it is even better than Open Source software. However...

If it doesn't work the way you want, you can't change it. You can suggest changes that may or not get rolled into the next version.

You'll probably have to wait months or years for the next version.

You can't give the software to your friends. In some cases, you can't even make backup copies. And you can't resell it.

If there's a bug in the software, you can report it and hope it gets fixed in the next version, similar to normal modifications.

You have no control over the company who made the software. They can do what they want, including sell out to another company that drops the software.

Commercial Versus Open Source Software

All this isn't to say that "commercial" software is all bad and Open Source software is all good. Sometimes there is no better alternative than commercial software. And some companies do a good job of listening to their customers and fixing bugs and adding capabilities (though probably not as fast as you'd like). And in the end, many companies operate on the business model that what they are selling is software, and the profit comes from the software. Open Source software can't work in that kind of a business model.

Open Source software has a lot of benefits, as detailed above. Since a lot of people aren't getting paid a lot of money to write it, sometimes program quality lags behind commercial software. And very few people turn a profit selling it. Most people who write it do so because they want to, not because they're getting paid to. In order to make Open Source software work as a business, you have to sell support or something besides the software itself.

But in the end, it comes down to Stallman's idea of "free", as in "freedom". Open Source software gives you freedom that commercial software simply can't.

Controversy

Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation take issue with the use of the term "Open Source". Open Source is a term coined up by Eric S. Raymond and others a few years ago in an attempt to overcome the confusing use of the word "free" in the term "free software". It was felt at the time that the use of the term "free software" was confusing for businesses, and didn't play well as a marketing term. Thus the coining of the term "Open Source". However, Stallman believes the term "Open Source" doesn't fully encompass the freedoms and philosophy and politics of "free software". Moreover, Stallman has a decidedly political and moral view of proprietary and free software, which the "Open Source" camp do not share. It's doubtful that this controversy will ever be resolved by all those involved.

Notes And Acknowledgements

It's important to note that this is a summary of Open Source and Open Source licenses. I have not presented either the Open Source definition or licenses in detail, and I'm not a lawyer. For the exact text of the definition and licenses, go to http://www.opensource.org.

In addition, O'Reilly puts out a book called Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution which contains a wealth of information on Open Source, how it came to be, what it is, etc.

Paul M. Foster
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