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Differences between Open Source and Free available Software
There are so many open source software and free software, what are the differences between them?
Views: 620
Replies to This Forum
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Permalink Reply by Shakil Ahmad on
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I think both are same but only changes of words are there.Some people called open source and some called it free source.Both are available easily and no charges for them.
If you have any ideas then feel free to share but not bookies or explicit only your tacit knowledge.
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Free Software, as used in this web site, refers to software distributed in source form which can be freely modified and redistributed, or freely modifiable and redistributable software. It does not refer to zero-cost software. This usage of the name "Free Software" was common in the Unix world and recently introduced to the general computer community. Free Software is also referred to as Freed Software, Liberated Software (software libre) or FRS (freely redistributable software). "Open Source" is a marketing name for Free Software, coined in Feb 1998 as an attempt to overcome the confusion over the word "free" in the English language. Open Source refers to the fact that the source code of Free Software is open to and for the world to take, to modify and to reuse. The precise meaning of Free Software is spelled out in the Debian Free Software Guidelines or the Free Software Definition while Open Source is defined officially by the Open Source Definition. Open Source and Free Software refer to, originally the same (around Feb 1998), but now different but largely similiar, set of software, but they emphasize different rationals; see Why ``Free Software'' is better than ``Open Source'' for more explanation.
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Legal support to free and open source software projects
T. Ramachandran
SFLC will bring to notice violations of licence terms
Infringement by corporations holding software patents
SFLC will focus on serving the FOSS community
KOCHI: The non-profit Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC), which recently formalised its presence in the country by opening an office in New Delhi, has set up a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) defence centre.
Founded in 2005 in the United States, the SFLC provides legal representation and other services to protect FOSS in the legal domain. Since its inception, it has legally supported and taken up the cause of many major free software and open source projects and organisations, including the Free Software Foundation (FSF), the Apache Software Foundation, the Drupal and the Gnome Foundation.
The SFLC, New Delhi, has been registered as an independent non-profit society. It has been active in India since 2006 and has worked with various organisations, including the FSF, India; the Centre for Internet and Society; the Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment; the Confederation of Indian Industries and different companies.
The extensive use of FOSS in India by software and hardware companies has given rise to many instances of it being used in a ‘non-compliant' manner, says Mishi Choudhary, SFLC counsel, who oversees its activities in India. The FOSS is generally distributed under different licences that mandate certain freedoms in their use and distribution. Essentially, these include the freedom to use the software, have access to and modify the source code and redistribute it.
“Non-compliance refers to the fact the software packages are being used in violation of the license terms under which they are distributed. The SFLC will bring such violations to the notice of the violators and will help them come into compliance,” Ms. Choudhary said. However, given that it wants people to use FOSS as much as possible, ensuring compliance, rather than taking recourse to litigation was the main objective. About global challenges to FOSS, she said that software patents were a “minefield” that inhibited innovation. “In India, as per the Patents Act, 1970 ‘computer program' per se is not patentable. But every year approximately 1,000 patent applications are being filed, and almost 100 patents are being granted in this field.”
“This is a dangerous phenomenon making writing a computer program a risky proposition, where you could be sued for infringement by corporations holding software patents. This could seriously impede the growth of the software industry in India as well as put shackles on development of FOSS,” she said.
More recently, some hugely popular FOSS software packages have been taken over by large companies that deal in proprietary software. But this need not make much of a difference to the scheme of things if the licensing part has been properly dealt with, she said. “New ownership may bring new outlooks or new commercial intentions, but the underlying structure of relationship between community development and profit-making business doesn't change.”
“If a project has chosen its inbound and outbound licensing wisely, and has put strong internal governance mechanisms in place, changes in the ownership of copyrights should not make much practical difference. Where projects have not paid attention to these matters, changes in ownership may make the process of catching up with lost opportunities more time-consuming or more stressful,” she said.
In India, the SFLC would be focusing on serving the FOSS community in the areas of licensing, litigation support, trademark counselling, patent defence, non-profit organisational assistance, public education and lawyer training, protection of digital civil liberties and supporting the FOSS initiatives in education.
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Permalink Reply by Parvez Ahmad on
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Dear Shakil Bhai Thanks for vast information on Open source and free software.
parvez
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Permalink Reply by Hemlata Chanchal on
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thanx sir
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Welcome madam...
parvez
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Permalink Reply by Dr. Rajpal Purohit on
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There are numerous groups who claim ownership of the term "Open Source", but the term has not been trademarked. The Open Source Initiative's definition is widely recognized as the standard or de facto definition.[citation needed]
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) was formed in February 1998 by Raymond and Perens. With about 20 years of evidence from case histories of closed and open development already provided by the Internet, the OSI continued to present the 'open source' case to commercial businesses. They sought to bring a higher profile to the practical benefits of freely available source code, and wanted to bring major software businesses and other high-tech industries into open source. Perens adapted Debian's Free Software Guidelines to make The Open Source Definition.[10]
[edit] The Open Source Definition
The definition published by FSF in February 1986 had two points:
The word "free" in our name does not refer to price; it refers to freedom. First, the freedom to copy a program and redistribute it to your neighbors, so that they can use it as well as you. Second, the freedom to change a program, so that you can control it instead of it controlling you; for this, the source code must be made available to you.[2]
The modern definition has four points, which it numbers zero to three in compliance with zero-based numbering common to computer systems. It defines free software by whether or not the recipient has the following four freedoms:[4]
* Freedom 0: The freedom to run the program for any purpose.
* Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish.
* Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
* Freedom 3: The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
Freedoms 1 and 3 require source code to be available because studying and modifying software without its source code is highly impractical.
Despite the fundamental philosophical differences between the free software movement and the open source movement, the official definitions of free software by the Free Software Foundation and of open source software by the Open Source Initiative basically refer to the same software licenses, with a few minor exceptions. While stressing the philosophical differences, the Free Software Foundation comments:
The term “open source” software is used by some people to mean more or less the same category as free software. It is not exactly the same class of software: they accept some licenses that we consider too restrictive, and there are free software licenses they have not accepted. However, the differences in extension of the category are small: nearly all free software is open source, and nearly all open source software is free.
The Open Source Definition is used by the Open Source Initiative to determine whether a software license can be considered open source. The definition was based on the Debian Free Software Guidelines, written and adapted primarily by Bruce Perens.[11][12] Perens did not base his writing on the "four freedoms" of Free Software from the Free Software Foundation, which were only widely available later.[13]
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Permalink Reply by shriram Pandey on
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Dear Friend,
Its simple..
------- Free software-- Open source-- Commercial
Licensed Y --N--(GNU/GPL)-- Y
Source Code N-- Y --N
Priced N-- N-- Y
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Yes sir, this is the pin pointed answer. thanks for concise and very good answer.!!
In simple words we can say.
There are many Free software available, which we are using in our daily life eg. Mozilla, Google chrome, etc. But we can't modified or customized in these s/w because we didn't have the source code.
but in case of open source we can make customization with these according to our needs. eg. Greenstone, DSpace, Koha, etc.
parvez
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Permalink Reply by Praveen Kumar on
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free software mens free available in many form but open source mens is available by net
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Permalink Reply by PANKAJ SEN on
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Free and open-source software (F/OSS, FOSS) or free/libre/open-source software (FLOSS, FL/OSS) is liberally licensed to grant the right of users to use, study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code. This approach has gained both momentum and acceptance as the potential benefits have been increasingly recognized by both individuals and corporations.
In the context of free and open-source software, free refers to the freedom to copy and re-use the software, rather than to the price of 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".[3]
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. Free software focuses on the philosophical freedoms it gives to users, whereas open source software focuses on the perceived strengths of its peer-to-peer development model.[5] FOSS is a term that can be used without particular bias towards either political approach.
Free software licences and open source licenses are used by many software packages. While the licenses themselves are in most cases the same, the two terms grew out of different philosophies and are often used to signify different distribution methodologies.
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Major difference is source code.
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