Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) is software that guarantees several important and high impact freedoms. With FLOSS you are free to
Thus the "Free Libre" emphasises free as in freedom or 'free speech' rather than free as in gratis or 'free beer'; that is FLOSS may have a purchase price but you will have the above freedoms.
In comparison, proprietary software protects ownership and exploitation of the program by hiding the source code. Much effort can be spent on protecting the code and binaries rather than on useful features. As a result you do not own the software but have a licence to use it in limited ways and obtrusive copy protection schemes can be enforced on the user.
Other types of software licence known as Freeware or Shareware are also low cost but you do not have the freedoms.
The terms Open Source, Free Software and Free Open Software (FOSS) are also often used. Free software was pioneered by Richard M Stallman and developed into the GNU Project. The term Open Source was created later by a consortium in order to appease the discomfort that some commercial venture feel with something labelled as free. The term Open Source is sometimes used for software for which the source is available but not the four Freedoms above, so SchoolForge uses the term FLOSS to make it clear that we exclude such software.
"Open content" is sometimes used to describe freely reusable and modifiable resources in general, including non-software. The GNU Free Document License as used by Wikipedia is an example.
Copyright laws are used to ensure that the freedoms are legally binding and propagated when the software is used in a new creation or derived work. Some licenses protect the freedoms better than others and care is needed in interpreting a licence.
Copyleft is a way of assigning copyright so that modified editions must be released under the same licence as the original, preserving the above freedoms. This is most fully realised in the GNU GPL license.
The open content book Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law by Lawrence Rosen is an excellent and very readable introduction to understanding, using and choosing Open Source licenses (but under US law).
SchoolForge aims to be an inclusive project. Some of the people involved in the project wish to look more generally at open and free communication in education, including reusable resources to support the main aims. For these people, restricting the discussion to just software is not to see the whole picture.
In a mailing list post, MJ Ray FROM the Association For Free Software described some of the reasons why they strongly prefer the term "free software":--
|
"Open Source" is an ambiguous phrase with definitions FROM OSI, !OeE, Becta, Microsoft(!) and many others. One of the original reason for the Open Source Initiative was to remove ambiguity by securing a trademark on the phrase (wishful thinking?) and to clarify things through marketing it. However, they didn't get the trademark and their marketing effort is dwarfed by other people defining "open source" as other things. The Free Software Definition is simpler and the ideas have had 20 years or so to establish themselves. Another reason for "Open Source" was to remove the connection with the ideas of sharing and being a good member of the community. From what I heard at the conference, those are still very popular ideas with people working in education. Some people class promotion of these ideas as political. I guess in that case, Chris could call AFFS a political group. Oh well. I'm not sure why it would be less popular with educators or why it should stop us promoting free software for the practical benefits too, though. If you sympathise with the goal of providing effective promotion of our preferred software licensing, please use the older term "Free Software" and do the relatively simple explanation about "free as in freedom." Ambiguity and division never help marketing. The material I consulted for [this] is mostly drawn from OSI's own site, but I had to dig around in pages not listed on the site index for some of it. The history of OSI and "Notes for translators" are the source for most of it. These are some of the older documents on there, as I remember them FROM the start of OSI, and quite enlightening about the original purposes of the campaign, instead of what it is today. |
Have a look at:
http://www.infonomics.nl/FLOSS/report/
for more discussion
Although I'm not opposed to revising the Coalition operating procedures, I do oppose the wording on the revision, specifically "software licensed to grant the right of users to study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code and the right to distribute the changed program," which seems to preclude open-resources. For example, General Education Online is an open resource, and although we do provide source code for the software powering our website, this is incidental to the project itself, which is to provide an open directory of higher education facilities worldwide.The rewording seems to preclude such "open resources", where the primary focus of the project is not software, per-se, but is instead working to provide a resource to the education community. I would recommend that if proposed change goes into effect, that open-resource is specifically mentioned in the paragraph. I would also recommend that any definition of FLOSS be added as a note after the text.Original Proposed:The SchoolForge website is a product of the SchoolForge coalition. Coalition membership is by groups whose efforts extend beyond this website, not by individuals. The website serves to provide individuals a starting point towards learning about educational efforts within FLOSS (software licensed to grant the right of users to study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code and the right to distribute the changed program,) and an opportunity for non-technical/non-programmers users to become involved in projects that follow FLOSS principals. Through these interactions, individuals are encouraged to learn about, apply, and become active participants in coalition member efforts.Revised Proposal:The Schoolforge website is a product of the Schoolforge coalition. Coalition membership is by groups, not by individuals, whose efforts extend beyond this website. The website serves to provide visitors a starting point towards learning about FLOSS(1) educational efforts, including open-source software and open resources available to the education community and an opportunity for non-technical users to become involved in projects that follow FLOSS principles. Through this interactions, visitors are encouraged to learn about, apply, and become active participants in coalition member efforts.1) FLOSS is....Sincerely,Michael VironPresident & CEO, General Education Online, A Schoolforge Founding Member
From: owner-schoolforge-core@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto: owner-schoolforge-core@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Justin
Sent: Monday, November 27, 2006 1:40 AM
To: schoolforge-core@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [school-core] Proposed Coalition operating procedure change
Original:The SchoolForge website is a product of the SchoolForge coalition. Coalition membership is by groups whose efforts extend beyond this website, not by individuals. The website serves to provide individuals a starting point towards learning about educational efforts within FLOSS, and an opportunity to non-technical (non-programmers) users to become involved in projects that follow principals shared with the more technical aspects. Through these interactions, individuals are encouraged to learn about, apply, and become active participants in coalition member efforts.Proposed:The SchoolForge website is a product of the SchoolForge coalition. Coalition membership is by groups whose efforts extend beyond this website, not by individuals. The website serves to provide individuals a starting point towards learning about educational efforts within FLOSS (software licensed to grant the right of users to study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code and the right to distribute the changed program,) and an opportunity for non-technical/non-programmers users to become involved in projects that follow FLOSS principals. Through these interactions, individuals are encouraged to learn about, apply, and become active participants in coalition member efforts.