Session 5

Commercial Off the Shelf vs

Open Source & Free

Open source focuses on the availability of the source code and the ability to modify and share it.

Example - Sakai – electronic learning system began in 2004 as a joint project between the universities of

Michigan, Indiana, MIT and Stanford The initial developers are also users now used by 350 universities including UCT and more

recently, Wits – also by community colleges and schools Free software focuses on the users freedom to use

the program

Open Source versus Free

Richard StallmanFree Software Movement

Free software activist 1983 – launched the GNU Project to create a free Unix-like

operating system 1985 – founded the Free Software Foundation Main author of several “copyleft” licenses – right to

distribute software requiring the same rights to be preserved in modified versions of the code

Free distribution – parties may give away the software as a component of an aggregate distribution – no royalty or other fee

Source code – must include source code Derived works – modifications and derived works to be

distributed under the same terms and conditions Others:

integrity of author’s code – must be able to distinguish the author’s patches, no discrimination against persons or groups, no discrimination against fields of endeavour, distribution of license - license must not be specific to a product, license must not restrict other software – cannot insist that all other

programs distributed on the same media be open source, license must be technology neutral – not obliged to use in conjunction with

specific programs and the user is free to modify the code to run on any platform

http://opensource.org/osd.html/

Open Source Definition

The freedom to run the program for any purpose

The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish

The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbour

The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits

Richard Stallman

Four Software Freedoms

There’s something I don’t understand about the open source movement. Oh, I understand open-source intellectually. I understand that it means that source code is open to be read and reviewed and perhaps revised by anyone who wants to …

What I don’t understand is something more sociological. I don’t understand who those folks are who want to do all that code reading and reviewing for no recompense.

It goes against the grain of everything I know about the software field.

Glass 2000 - The Sociology of Open Source: Of Cults and Cultures

The license agreements of most software companies try to keep users at the mercy of those companies.

By contrast, our General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software – to make sure the software is free for all its users …

When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price.

Specifically, the General Public License is designed to make sure that you have the freedom to give away or sell copies of free software, that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new programs; and that you know you can do these things …

To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.

Free Software Foundation 1989

General Public License

Contrast this

… with this

Will quality software be written for the hobby market? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software.

Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid? Is this fair?

One thing you don’t do by stealing software is get back at MITS for some problem you may have had. MITS doesn’t make money selling software. The royalty paid to us, the manual, the tape and the overhead make it a break-even operation.

One thing you do do is prevent good software from being written.

Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distributing for free?

Most directly, the thing you do is theft

Bill Gates (1976)

MITS - Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (creators of the micro-computer)

Bill Gates’ response

The term ‘free’ software is very ambiguous (something the Free Software Foundation’s propaganda had to wrestle with constantly). Does ‘free’ mean ‘no money charged?’ or does it mean ‘free to be modified by anyone’, or something else?

Raymond 2001

In 2002, Peru began to consider legislation to require the use of free software within the government citing the importance of: (1) free access to information; (2) permanence of public data; and (3) security of the state and its citizens. Responding to Microsoft’s formal complaint about this move, Villanueva Nuñez, a congressman in Peru, noted:

In addition, a reading of [Microsoft’s] opinion would lead to the conclusion that the State market is crucial and essential for the proprietary software industry, to such a point that the choice made by the State in this bill would completely eliminate the market for these firms. If that is true, we can deduce that the State must be subsidizing the proprietary software industry. In the unlikely event that this were true, the State would have the right to apply the subsidies in the area it considered of greatest social value; it is undeniable, in this improbable hypothesis, that if the State decided to subsidize software, it would have to do so choosing the free over the proprietary, considering its social effect and the rational use of taxpayers’ money.

Pay for the license Right to use in perpetuity

Pay extra for the source code or get it for free Right to view the source code Right to modify the source code for internal use No right to re-sell or market either the program or the source code

Only pay the supplier maintenance fees while you feel you are getting value for your money

What about a hybrid model?

Unless well capitalised, Usually cash sensitive Cost of software packages can be daunting

documents, spreadsheets, presentations, data-bases, firewalls, anti-virus, registry cleaners, backups, etc

In many instances they just need something that works – fancy can come later this is not to say that free means inadequate or poor

quality – many of the free software packages are excellent

Startups and micro enterprises

www.techsupportalert.com

Home & Office

Best office suite

Closed Open

Commercial Free

Map of the software world

Closed Open

Commercial Free

MS Office, Windows, SAP, SQL, Sybase, Oracle, …

Closed Open

Commercial Free

Adobe Reader, Internet Explorer, Outlook, Pegasus Mail, Winamp

Closed Open

Commercial Free

Linux, Mozilla Firefox, Sakai, …

Closed Open

Commercial Free

Any examples ???Individually negotiated contracts …

Require in-house or outsourced expertise Technology, development environment and language(s) are

prescribed Need to familiarise oneself with the work of others Retaining modifications when new releases are made available

does one join the development community? do you want to make your changes available to your competitors?

Support Security

Access to code Linux is secure

Implications of Open Source

The users of Linux that I know all have dual boot so they can run Windows

The reverse does not hold true

A personal observation

Deployment of say Open Office typically differs from that of say Sakai:

The former, while accompanied by source code, is normally simply installed and run

The latter typically requires a significant personalisation, customisation, integration and roll out effort

Implications of Open Source

No access to source code unless otherwise negotiated

Dependent on vendor for upgrades, modifications and support

May be dependent on vendor for installation and training

Subject to vendor discretion regarding modifications and pricing

Vulnerable to vendor longevity …

Implications of Commercial

Free – often is, besides for possible training Open source – never is – the fact that source code

is implicit means that expertise is required and a learning curve is inevitable

Commercial – never is – vulnerable to external costs – often to foreign exchange fluctuation too

Costs

Is the application bog standard – office automation, browser, accounting?

Is the application intended to provide competitive advantage – if so, chances are it will need to do something unique?

Key Questions