1. Digital Sustainability
in the Knowledge Society
Fundamentals of Free/Open Source Software (FOSS)
Dr. Marcus M. Dapp
Board OKF Germany / IT Strategist, City Government Munich
24.10.2011

2. Before we start...
Example for »Framing«
Visited 25.10.10

3. Famous People in the software world
William “Bill” Gates III Richard M. Stallman Linus Torvalds
Founder Microsoft Corp. Founder GNU project and Founder Linux kernel pj.
Richest person on earth, Free Software Foundation, Owner of Linux trade mark
Windows®, Office®, etc. GNU General Public License

4. Famous people's views on software
Bill Gates Richard Stallman Linus Torvalds
Person business man activist, philosopher engineer, pragmatic
Framework market society technology
Software = product/service commons tool (?)
Name for SW proprietary free sw open source sw
Goal = profit freedom just hobby (?)

5. Attention please: Now comes the
ONLY technical slide in this lecture.

6. What developers do – software engineering
source code Compiler object code
Craft of implementing one or more interrelated abstract algorithms using a particular
programming language to produce a concrete computer program.
Programming has elements of art, science, mathematics, and engineering. [WP]

7. There are exceptions...

8. Bill’s World: Proprietary Software »PCSS«
source code
source code compiler object code
object code
Accessible for manufacturer only Accessible for user
Full control over code • Limited right to use
→ »closed source« • no modification
• no copies
• Defined in an End User License Agreement (EULA)
• Business models’ are based on royalties/license fees
WP: proprietary software; EULA

9. Richard’s World: Free Software »F(L)OSS«
source code
source code Compiler object code
object code
Accessible for everybody
Full access to source code* Full control over code
(Linus' World: »open source«) • Right to Use
• Right to Read*
• Right to Modify*
• Right to Distribute
• Many different licenses, e.g. GNU General Public License (GPL)
• Business models are not based on license fees.
Full definitions: www.fsf.org, www.opensource.org

10. GNU General Public License (GPL)
• »Freedom not price«, »Libre«
• Reference license, most widely used
• »Copyleft«
• Changes again under GPL
• »Share­alike«
• »Viral«
• Combining puts whole GPL
Prop. SW
program under GPL.

11. GPL and »anticommons«
• »copyleft« protects anticommons
• Forbids right to exlude (appropriation),
ensures privilege of use for all
• »virality« enlarges anticommons
• Combinations with other software stay
free
→ Dispute on en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft

12. Software license »landscape«
PCSS (ARCHETYPE) SHAREWARE FREEWARE
License fee Try first, pay later No license fee / gratis
Examples {Adobe, MS} {FreePDF} {Skype, A­Reader}
(MS “Shared Source”)
FOSS GPL­type Mozilla­type BSD­type
»permissive«
4 freedoms yes yes yes
»copyleft« yes yes no
»viral« yes no no
Licenses GPL v2, v3 MPL *BSD, APL
Examples Linux kernel Firefox Apache, (Free)BSD
Public domain (no copyright)
CC­BY­SA, Dr. Marcus M. Dapp, 2008­2011

13. FOSS phenomenon raises several questions
• Giving valuable software, which could
be sold, away for free.
• Questions:
• Why are they doing it?
• Who are „they“?
• How are they organized?
• Implications for other digital goods?
• …

14. More about the FOSS phenomenon
• First Monday: Special issue on FOSS
• http://firstmonday.org/issues/special10_10/
• Research Policy: Special issue on open
source software development
• http://econpapers.repec.org/article/eeerespol/default32.htm