Free Open Source Software - Introduction

FREE, OPEN SOURCE
SOFTWARE
(FOSS)

:

Enabling Technology Through Freedom of
Choice, Open Innovation and Collaborative
Computing
Professor Dr R.Badlishah Ahmad
Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP)

Introduction
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IT is advancing and changing at rapid pace because of
Internet (TCP/IP)
Access to Internet become necessity.. from fiber optic to 3G,
4G, WiMAX etc
Everybody is getting connected and make themselves
available and accessible anytime and anywhere
What are the software technology behind this? Use by giant
company such as Google and Facebook Co..

2/67

Internet
1965: Two computers at MIT Lincoln Lab communicate with one
another using packet-switching technology
1968: Beranek and Newman, Inc. (BBN) unveils the final version of the
Interface Message Processor (IMP) specifications. BBN wins
ARPANET contract
1972: BBN’s Ray Tomlinson introduces network email. The
Internetworking Working Group (INWG) forms to address need for
establishing standard protocols
1973: Global networking becomes a reality as the University College of
London (England) and Royal Radar Establishment (Norway) connect to
ARPANET. The term Internet is born.
3/67

Internet
1974: Vinton Cerf and Bob Kahn (Fathers of the Internet) publish "A
Protocol for Packet Network Interconnection," which details the design
of TCP
1982: TCP and IP, as the protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP,
emerge as the protocol for ARPANET. (IPv4 to IPv6)
1987: The number of hosts on the Internet exceeds 20,000. Cisco
ships its first router
1990: Tim Berners-Lee, develops HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
1991: World Wide Web is introduced to the public
INTERNET is based on TCP/IP and the source code is
OPEN/Available

4/67

Transmission Medium
●

coaxial cable, the first
broadband transmission
medium, invented by AT&T
in 1929 for Ethernet:
–

–

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at 400MHz, Cable Loss
5.5dB/100ft
at 20GHz, Loss ~
100dB/100ft

Data Rate of 10-100Mbs

5/67

Transmission Medium
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Twisted Pair cabling:
–

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Shielded Twisted Pair (STP) &
Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP)

UTP: most popular network cable in data
networks for short/medium length (up to
100 meters or 328 feet) BW ~ 1GHz
–

Data Rate of 40Gbs (50m) – 1 pair of
cable

–

100Gbs (15m) – 1 pair of cable

–

1 Gigabit Ethernet (GE) – 250Mb/s per
pair (there are 4 pairs)

–

10GE? Heavier, difficult to maintain →
Fibre is the best option

6/67

Transmission Medium
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Fiber Optic
–

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BW 1THz, Loss ~
0.93dB/1km

26 Terabit/s in 1 Wavelength
channel at 50km
Explosive of mass data! ->
Internet of Things

7/67

Internet Evolution (Video)

8/67

Freedom of Choice, Open Innovation
and Open Access:
Technology/Content/Knowledge
Availability

9/67

Education Gets IT & OPEN
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology is leading the way
MIT Open Courseware (OCW) shares free lecture notes, exams, and
other resources from more than 1,700 courses spanning MIT's entire
curriculum
40 million visits from virtually every country on earth

10/67

Education Gets IT & OPEN
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educational materials from its
undergraduate- and graduate-level
courses online, partly free and
openly available to anyone,
anywhere
funded by the William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation, the Andrew
W. Mellon Foundation, and MIT
October 2012, over 2180 courses
were available online

11/67

Open Courseware (OCW)
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OpenCourseWare Consortium is a
worldwide community of hundreds
of higher education institutions and
associated organizations
committed to advancing open
education and its impact on global
education
OCW Consortium helps to solve
social problems through expansion
of access to education

12/67

●

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about free and open sharing
Free, meaning no cost, and
open, which refers to the use
of legal tools (open licenses)
that give everyone
permission to reuse and
modify educational
resources

●

Free and open sharing
increases access to
education and knowledge for
anyone, anywhere, anytime

13/67

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People want to learn
free and open access to
education and knowledge,
people can fulfill these desire
–

Workers can learn something
that will help them on the job

–

–

Teachers can find new ways to
help students learn

–

People can connect with others
they wouldn’t otherwise meet to
share information and ideas

–

Materials can be translated,
mixed together, broken apart and
openly shared again, increasing
access and allowing new
approaches

–

Anyone can access

–

New Term: MOOC (Massive
Online Open Courses)

Faculty can exchange material
and draw on resources from
all around the world

14/67

Microsoft Commitment
●

(Microsoft Malaysia presentation at Malaysian Open Source
Conference (MOSC) 2011)
–

to achieve Openness and Interoperability with OSS

–

designing products to support OSS

–

collaboration with OSS vendors to ensure interoperability
between products

–

contributing to OSS projects

–

releasing some technologies under approved Open
Source licenses

15/67

Important of an Open Standard?

Standards, instructions or “blueprints” that are created and maintained in an

open

manner.
Using a democratic approach where no single individual or company controls
the standard.

Open standards provide choice and interoperability
between systems.

16/67

Open Source Software (OSS) or Free
Software (FS)?
●

●

OSS == FS
A type of software defined by its collaborative development
model, accessibility of code and distribution models.
–

●

Examples are GNU/Linux OS, gcc, Open Office, Xpdf,
GIMP etc.

This is in contrast with proprietary software which is only
available in a binary or “closed” format and typically carries
a license fee.
–

Examples are Microsoft XP & Vista, Microsoft Visual
C/C++, Borland C, MS Office 2007, Adobe Photoshop
etc.
17/67

Source code:

# include <stdio.h>
int main (void)
{
Printf ("hello, world!n");
return 0;
}

19/67

Technology Availability
“Free Software/Open Source Software
(FOSS)”

20/67

GNU Project
GNU = GNU is Not Unix (a recursive acronym!)
Project to implement a completely free
Unix-like operating system
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Started by Richard Stallman in 1984, an MIT
researcher, in a time when Unix sources were
researcher
no longer free.
Initial components: C compiler (gcc), make
(GNU make), Emacs, C library (glibc), coreutils
(ls, cp ...)
However, in 1991, the GNU project was still
missing a kernel and was running only on
proprietary unice, until the invention of Linux
kernel!!

Richard Stallman
22/67

Linux Kernel (part of an OS)
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Linus Torvald

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Free Unix-like kernel created in 1991 by
Linus Torvalds
The whole system uses GNU tools:
C library, gcc, binutils, fileutils, make,
emacs...
So the whole system is called “GNU/Linux”
Shared very early as free software (GPL
license), which attracted more and more
contributors and users
Since 1991, growing faster than any other
operating system (not only Unix)

23/67

Unix family tree
1980

1970

2000

1990

FreeBSD

BSD family

OpenBSD

BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution)
Bill Joy

Time

NetBSD

Bill Joy

SunOS (Stanford University Network)
NextStep
Bell Labs (AT&T)

GNU

MacOS X
GNU / Linux

Richard Stallman

Ken Thompson
Dennis Ritchie (C language
created to implement a portable OS)

Linus Torvalds

IRIX (SGI)
SRV5
Ritchie, Thompson

System V family

HPUX
Sun Solaris
AIX (IBM)

24/67

GNU/Linux DISTRIBUTIONS (Distros)

26/67

Distros... All in 1 Disc!!
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LibreOffice.org: word processing,
spreadsheet & presentation
Thunderbird+Lightning: email &
calendaring
Firefox, Chrome: Web browsing → try
the add-ons!

●

Pidgin: instant messaging

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Gimp: image manipulation, animations

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Blender: 3D imaging, rendering and
animations

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Exaile: music manager and player

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VLC: video & music player

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Much more...
27/67

The GIMP
The GNU Image Manipulation Program
http://gimp.org
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License: GPL

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Main developers: community

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Extremely powerful image processor
Similar to Photoshop

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Platforms: Unix/Linux/MacOS , Windows

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Extensible and scriptable through plugins

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Alternative to Adobe Photoshop
29/67

OpenOffice.org
Full featured and popular free office suite
http://openoffice.org/
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License: LGPL (since version 2.0)
Main developer: Sun Microsystems, with support from a big
community. Business model: selling desktop solutions without
Microsoft software.

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Supported platforms: Unix, Windows, MacOSX

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Alternative to Microsoft Office

30/67

LibreOffice
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Main developer: The Document Foundation

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A fork of OpenOffice.org.

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Support Open Document Format (ODF) to provide freedom

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LibreOffice has been downloaded approximately 7.5 million times
since its first stable launch in January 2011.
Default office suite in many different Linux distributions, such as
Fedora, Linux Mint, openSUSE and Ubuntu.

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Google also supports the LibreOffice project

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LibreOffice is licensed under the terms of the LGPLv3

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Alternative to Microsoft Office
http://www.libreoffice.org/

31/67

Inkscape
A vector graphics editor
http://inkscape.org
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License: GNU GPL

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Developers: community

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Supported platforms:
Linux/Unix, Windows and
MacOS X
Alternative to Corel Draw
and Adobe Illustrator

32/67

Mozilla Firefox
Most advanced and friendly web browser &
No 1 browser
http://mozilla.org/projects/firefox
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License: MPL (copyleft type)
Main developers: Mozilla Foundation,
community
Supported platforms: Unix / Linux,
Windows, MacOS X
Market share (March 2007): 24% in
Europe. It even reaches 44% in Slovenia,
41% in Finland and 36% in Germany!
More statistics on
http://www.xitimonitor.com.
Alternative to IE

33/67

Eclipse
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Integrated development environment (IDE)
comprising a base workspace and an
extensible plug-in system for customizing
the environment
written mostly in Java and able to compile
JAVA
other programming languages including
Ada, C, C++, COBOL, Fortran, Haskell,
JavaScript, Lasso, Perl, PHP, Python, R,
Ruby (including Ruby on Rails framework),
Scala, Clojure, Groovy, Scheme, and Erlang
Alternative to Borland C/C++, Visual Basic,
Microsoft Visual

34/67

Scilab
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Open Source
Scilab is open source
software distributed under
CeCILL license
cross-platform numerical
computational package
high-level, numerically
oriented programming
language
Alternative to MATLAB
35/67

KiCAD
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software suite for electronic design
automation (EDA)
integrated environment for all of the
stages of the design process:
–
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PCB layout

–

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Schematic Capture
Gerber file generation/visualization
and library editing

cross-platform program, written with
wxWidgets to run on
–

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FreeBSD, Linux, Microsoft Windows
and Mac OS X

Alternative to OrCAD

36/67

Android
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A software platform and operating system
for mobile devices

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Based on the Linux kernel

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Found way back in 2003.

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Developed in Palo Alto, California.

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Developed by the Andy Rubin, Rich Miner,
Nick Sears and Chris White.
Purchased by GOOGLE in AUGUST, 2005
for $50million
Alternative to MS Mobile, IOS, Blackberry

37/67

Android - Open Handset Alliance (OHA)
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It’s consortium of several
companies.
This group of companies are
allowed to use source code
of Android and develop
applications.
Nokia, Blackberry and Apple
- not part of OHA.

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Embedded System

Beagle Board

Rasberry Pie

Arduino
40/67

Why FOSS?
Is it because of Cost?

41/67

Free Software (Open Source Software)
Free Software grants the below 4 freedoms to the user:
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose
●The freedom to study how the program works,
and adapt it to one's needs
●The freedom to redistribute copies to help others
●The freedom to improve the program, and release one's
improvements to the public
●

See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

42/67

Proprietary Software
Microsoft & EULA (End User License Agreement)

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You give up all rights
You accept all obligations placed on you for
limited benefit

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You may not share the software

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You may not change the software

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You do not own the software

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You may only install the software to one device

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We reserve the right to change the license for any
reason or purpose at any time
You may only run the software as specifically
spelled out in the EULA

43/67

It is because of
Freedom!

44/67

Government Adoption Trends
Worldwide, 265 government policy initiatives ranging from pilot
projects to preferences (and even mandates) for the use of OSS
(Center for Strategic and International Studies – April 2006)
●

Most OSS policy initiatives are in Europe (47%), Asia (27%), LATAM
(15%) followed by N. America (9%)
●

Local/state level more likely to be approved by council/legislative
action
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***Data taken from CSIS Study on Government Open Source Policies

45/67

Microsoft Commitment
●

(Microsoft Malaysia presentation at Malaysian Open Source
Conference (MOSC) 2011)
–

to achieve Openness and Interoperability with OSS

–

designing products to support OSS

–

collaboration with OSS vendors to ensure interoperability
between products

–

contributing to OSS projects

–

releasing some technologies under approved Open
Source licenses

46/67

Why US Governments move to open
source

Public sector organizations must cut costs in an
environment of software upgrades, security issues
and piracy
●The level of acceptance of open source has been
raised
●The need to provide increased access for business
and people
●To promote a local software industry
●The software can be shared
●

47/67

U.S. Federal Government OSS users
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U.S. Air Force

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DHS

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DISA

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NOA

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Army

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Census Bureau

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Navy

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DOJ

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Marine Corp

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GSA

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Coast Guard

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Energy

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NASA

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PTO

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FAA

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U.S. Courts

48/67

Sampling of 5,000+ users in the U.S.
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City of New York DoITT

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Connecticut DoIT

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City of Chicago

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Indiana University

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Penn State University

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Florida EPA

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University of Michigan

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NC DPI

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City of Houston

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Minnesota DOT

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Louisiana Health & Human Services

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Pennsylvania OIT

City of Philadelphia

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DeKalb County, GA

Los Angeles County

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NC University System

State of North Carolina ITS

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Henrico County, VA

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Minnesota Department of Natural Resources

City of Seattle

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Purdue University

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Arizona State University

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University of Phoenix

MIT

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CUNY & SUNY

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Miami-Dade County, FL

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University of Texas

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University of Chicago

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Florida Department of Health

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Massachusetts ITD

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Carnegie Mellon University

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Wisconsin DET

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Baltimore County, MD

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Georgia University System

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Emory University

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NY State Insurance Dept.

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City of Los Angeles

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MD Anderson

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California DOJ
Johns Hopkins University

49/67

Brazil's government
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Many ministries have switched to Linux and other OSS
–

“The number one reason for this change is economic” - Sergio
Amadeu, National Institute for Information Technology (BBC, 2005)

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Plan open source when digitizing the Federal court system

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State of Parana
–

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“The world of technology is opening up; there are hundreds of
thousands of people working to improve free software. The old, closed
model must adapt in order to survive.”
–

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adopting eGroupWare, MySQL solution for its 10,000 users

Cerqueira Cesar, Head of IT, Banco do Brasil

Many ministries have switched to Linux and other OSS
All Schools will be using Linux PC (825,000 installation – 2008), 2009
another 150,000 – LXF Magazine July 2008.

50/67

India's government
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State Government of Kerala
–
–

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Announced in 2006 it will be a completely FLOSS zone
Deploying linux in 12,500 schools

Goa, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal using Linux to save costs on
e-governance
Sam Pitroda, National Knowledge Commission: “... we must
actively encourage wherever possible open source software
implementations and open standards.”
Several national and local government projects to distribute
OSS freely in local languages

51/67

Focus on Malaysia's government
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Approved by the Government IT and Internet Committee on 19 th
February 2004
Announcement of OSS Master Plan 16th July 2004
Formulated through consultative process involving government
agencies, institutions of higher learning, nonprofit organizations
Institute of Microelectronic Systems established OS R&D group;
maintain Asian Open Source Centre
Administration Modernization and Management Planning Unit
created Open Source Competency Centre (OSCC) and wrote a
government-approved OSS plan
–

Migration roadmap for e-mail, browsers first, then databases
53/67

List of Linux adopters in Education - 1/2
Examples of large scale adoption of Linux in education
include the following:
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The OLPC XO-1 (previously called the MIT $100 laptop and
The Children's Machine), is an inexpensive laptop running
Linux, which will be distributed to millions of children as part
of the One Laptop Per Child project, especially in
developing countries.
Republic of Macedonia deployed 5,000 Linux desktops
running Ubuntu across all 468 public schools and 182
computer labs (December 2005). Later in 2007, another
180,000 Ubuntu thin client computers were deployed.

54/67

List of Linux adopters in Education - 2/2
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Schools in Bolzano, Italy, with a student population of 16,000,
switched to a custom distribution of Linux, (FUSS Soledad
GNU/Linux), in September 2005.
Brazil has around 20,000 Linux desktops running in
elementary and secondary public schools.
Government officials of Kerala, India announced they will use
only free software, running on the Linux platform, for computer
education, starting with the 2,650 government and
government-aided high schools.
22,000 students in the US state of Indiana had access to Linux
Workstations at their high schools in 2006.
55/67

Linux Foundation Report 2010
●

Linux is poised for growth in the coming years (2011):
–

77% of companies are planning to add more GNU/Linux
servers in the next twelve months

–

only 41% of respondents are planning to add Windows
servers in the next year

–

while 44% say that they will decreasing or maintaining
the number of Windows servers in their organizations over
the same time period

–

over the next five years, 80% of respondents plan on
adding more GNU/Linux, relative to other operating
systems, compared to only 21% planning on adding more
Microsoft servers in the same period.
56/67

It took 10 years (2003-2013)
to do the transformation

57/67

Summary of FOSS

FOSS is about Freedom and not Cost!!
Do you know??
Internet Technology is based on TCP/IP
TCP/IP is FOSS..

58/67

THE END...

“The free software movement is one of the
most successful social movements to emerge in
the past 25 years, driven by a worldwide
community of ethical programmers dedicated to
the cause of freedom and sharing. But the
ultimate success of the free software movement
depends upon teaching our friends, neighbors
and work colleagues about the danger of not
having software freedom, about the danger of a
society losing control over its computing”
www.fsf.org
59/67

Next Slide is on FOSS Licences (Brief)

60/67

FOSS Licences
Copyright is a set of exclusive rights granted
to the author or creator of an original work:
●

includes the right to copy, reproduce,
distribute and adapt the work.

Copyright owners have the exclusive right to:
●

●

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exercise control over copying and other
exploitation of the works for a specific
period of time.
Anyone requiring to exploit and use any
copyrighted work requires permission to
use that work.
Can grant permission and grant license
for exploitation of the work.

61/67

FOSS Licences
Copyleft is a term used in respect of FOSS licensing which is
used for copyright:
●

Copyleft is a practice of using copyright law to offer the
right to distribute copies and modified versions of a work
and requiring that the same rights be preserved in
modified versions of the work.

Main idea behind copylefting the open source software was:
●

●

to not let the product fall into the domain of proprietary
software. If open source software is put into public
domain with no copyright, people can make the said
software proprietary and it would defeat the whole
purpose of open source freedom.
To guarantees that every user has the freedom.

62/67

FOSS Licences
Copyright law has been used to withhold
permission:
●

to copy, modify or distribute software,

Copyleft ensures that the project remains free,
and all modified and extended versions of the
program remains free as well.
Proprietary software developers use copyright to:
●

take away the users' freedom;

Copyleft guarantees their freedom.
That's why the name has been reversed from
“copyright” to “copyleft”

63/67

FOSS Licences
FOSS licenses are categorized as:
●

strong,

●

weak or

●

with no copyleft provisions

Non-copyleft licenses, also known as permissive
licenses, allows those using the software to relicense it under any terms as they want.
The most popular copyleft license is GPL.
The most popular non-copyleft license is BSD
style. These licenses place no restriction on
licensing for modified works.

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FOSS Licences - Copyleft
The strength of the copyleft governing a work is an expression of the extent that the
copyleft provisions can be efficiently imposed on all kinds of derived works

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FOSS Licences - Copyleft

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Free Open Source Software - Introduction

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Free Open Source Software - Introduction