CS155a E Commerce Lecture 22 December 4 2001 The Open Source Movement Acknowledgement V Ramachandran A Software Business Model Create an idea for useful software Develop software write source code Compile software on specific platforms to binary version Package and sell binary version Legal uses of the software are controlled by a software license Issue upgrades Add features that people want and sell new versions Business Model Pros The developers intellectual property rights are protected People use the software exactly as the developers want them to Users never see how the software works and so others can t steal the nuts and bolts Developers receive compensation for their hard work There s an incentive to code and create new ideas The market determines what is good including software and hardware platforms Operating systems and machine architectures good for users and developers are the ones that flourish Business Model Cons Users can t customize software to their needs and the developer may not be able to satisfy all users requests for changes Binary versions run on certain machines only Forces people to buy specific platforms Can t necessarily use one machine to do everything Standards can cause monopolies Source code hidden Can t be improved and studied by others Hard to design interoperable products why does MS Office on MS Windows work especially well Using computers is expensive How Much Does Software Cost Source Amazon com 12 3 2001 Operating Systems Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition full version 199 Windows 2000 Server 5 client 999 Apple MacOS X 1 full version 129 Office Suites Microsoft Office XP Standard 400 Microsoft Office v X for MacOS X 450 Microsoft Works 6 0 50 Other Software Adobe Acrobat 5 0 documents 199 Adobe Photoshop 6 0 graphics 560 Microsoft Visual Studio 6 0 Professional programming 939 An Alternative Approach Free software Gives users the power to use software as they wish Free software is a matter of liberty not price free as in free speech not as in free beer Free Software Foundation Development not controlled by a small group people can learn from the code Revenue models can still develop around software distributed with a free license Open Source Technical definition Anyone can look at the source code Benefits Interoperability Education Cross platform compatibility if code can be compiled by users Still protects intellectual property Uses of code still limited by a license Developers maintain rights to code and official releases of the product Consequences of Open Source Software can be closely scrutinized performance can be analyzed and attributed to parts of code Ideas behind code can become standards Distributors can specialize in building more features on top of open source software offering customized packages with support options Open source is a more business friendly term than free Free Software Technical definition from the Free Software Foundation Users have the freedom to 1 run the software for any purpose 2 study how the program works and adapt it to their needs 3 redistribute copies 4 improve the program and release improvements to the public Access to source code is necessary for 2 and 4 so Free can include Open Source Consequences of Free Software Free software can be modified used and even sold as users see fit Selling free software requires having additional services that the user wants Packaging delivery installation mechanisms Help support training Customizing software for specific needs Better versions of software can be released by any user Software Licenses The software license indicates what users can do with software and code Traditional licenses strictly govern use of software based on purchase Open source and free licenses indicate how code can be used reused and distributed usually asserting user rights like the four freedoms GNU General Public License GPL Formalization of ideal software distribution model by the Free Software Foundation and the GNU Project Developers can choose to release their free software under the GPL license Requires that users maintain the original copyright on the code and clearly mark any changes when distributing it Source code is included and users can modify and compile it where and how they see fit Copyleft Redistributed versions must give users the same rights must include source code that can be modified etc Other Popular Licenses Many licenses exist that come from organizations that develop free software GPL compatible licenses are those that allow software covered to be combined with GPLcovered software to produce larger free products Examples non copyleft MIT BSD Berkeley X11 windowing system Other public licenses Netscape JavaScript Artistic W3C Software Relationships Among Software Distribution Models Source Free Software Foundation How The Movement Began 1983 GNU Project developed Goal to produce a UNIX compatible freesoftware system GNU GNU s not Unix Idea conceived by Richard Stallman who worked in an MIT group that exclusively used free software 1975 1985 Free Software Foundation Group that manages GNU project and distributes GNU software GNU History continued 1985 GNU Emacs editor available First major piece of usable free software 1990s Most pieces of free system complete except operating system kernel Combined with Linux kernel by Linus Torvalds to produce a GNU Linux OS distribution This is a complete UNIX compatible system that contains free software tools Free UNIX Compatible Systems MINIX 1987 and Linux 1992 are free OS kernels originally developed for academic use GNU Linux and BSD Berkeley are the two most popular UNIX like OSs Stable robust systems incorporating standard Internet and networking protocols standard development tools many other free widely used tools Allow users to set up servers and workstations at little cost that can do almost anything PCand Mac compatible systems can do Tools in Free OS Distributions Web server e g Apache Mail server e g Sendmail Other Internet and network daemons e g SAMBA and other file servers OpenSSH FTP servers Development tools e g compilers for many programming languages User tools e g web browsers graphics tools editors spreadsheets Ghostscript and other document tools sound players and media tools Graphical user interfaces e g Gnome KDE and other windowing systems Full name Red Hat Inc Stock Price RHAT 7 23 at close 12 3 2001 52 wk range 2 40 to 10 62 IPO 8 11 1999 at 14 share Price shot up to 52 share the same day Linux