Free and open-source software: Difference between revisions

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[[File:Poster- When you program open source, you're programming Communism..jpg|thumb|A tongue-in-cheek photoshopped poster equating open source development to communism, based on an actual poster from the Recording Industry Association of America claiming that pirating MP3s is "downloading communism"]]
[[File:Poster- When you program open source, you're programming Communism..jpg|thumb|A tongue-in-cheek photoshopped poster equating open source development to communism, based on an actual poster from the Recording Industry Association of America claiming that pirating MP3s is "downloading communism"]]
'''Free and open-source software''' ('''FOSS''') is software that is freely licensed to use, copy, etc. as well as having an open-source codebase, without any proprietary elements.  
'''Free and open-source software''' ('''FOSS''') or '''Libre Software''' is software that is free (as in freedom) to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve. For a piece of software to be considered Free and Open Source, it must comply to a small set of requirements laid down by the Free Software Foundation (FSF).  


FOSS is relevant to this wiki in multiple ways. ProleWiki is built on FOSS software called MediaWiki, but FOSS is also championed by some as being "digital [[communism]]", that is -- it embodies both [[post-capitalism]] as well as a [[post-scarcity]].  
== Relevance and Usage by Socialist Countries ==
FOSS (most times present in it's bastardized fashion, "Open-Source") is relevant to the world in multiple ways. There are many notable projects that are Free Software, including MediaWiki (the software ProleWiki is built on), GNU/Linux and OpenSSL.


By realizing the historical potential of an "economy of abundance" for the new digital world FOSS may lay down a plan for political resistance or show the way towards a potential transformation of [[capitalism]].
Socialist countries such as [[China]], [[Cuba]] and Korea ([[DPRK]]) have invested heavily on FOSS for both daily and government usage, mainly in the Operating System space, socialist FOSS projects of note include:


According to Yochai Benkler, Jack N. and Lillian R. Berkman Professor for Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School, free software is the most visible part of a new economy of commons-based peer production of information, knowledge, and culture. As examples, he cites a variety of FOSS projects, including both free software and open-source.
* Red Star OS, a GNU/Linux Operating System that is privately used by Korean government officials. It is based on FOSS software and is proprietary due to it's nature as a tool for mostly government use.<ref>[https://archiveos.org/redstar/ Red Star OS Archive] at ArchiveOS.</ref>
* Nova, a GNU/Linux Operating System made by university students in Cuba focusing on security. Meant for both government and general use, and available to the public for free.<ref>[http://www.nova.cu Nova OS] webpage.</ref>
* PaddlePaddle, a machine learning developed by Baidu in collaboration with the Chinese government, mainly for use in search engines.<ref>https://github.com/PaddlePaddle/Paddle</ref>
* COVID19-Cuba, an Android application used to aggregate data about the COVID-19 pandemic and help citizens stay away from regions with a high infection rate.<ref>[https://github.com/covid19cuba/covid19cuba-app COVID19-Cuba GitHub page].</ref>
 
== Essential Freedoms ==
To be considered FOSS, a program must offer all of these freedoms<ref name=":0">[https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html ''"What is Free Software?''"] by the GNU Project.</ref>:
 
* The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
* The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2).
* The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
 
== History and Loss of Prominence ==
The Free Software movement was created by Richard Matthew Stallman, a liberal<ref>Richard M. Stallman's [https://stallman.org/#politics Political Notes]</ref> who believed that only for software in particular, freedom of distribution and modification was more important than the freedom of capital. The FSF sought to make FOSS widespread and succeeded in doing so with the release of it's GNU Operating System.<ref>[https://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.en.html "''Detailed History of the GNU Project''"] by Richard Stallman</ref><ref name=":0" />
 
The GNU Operating System, nowadays known as GNU/Linux or just [[Linux]], sought to replace the proprietary and monopolized versions of the common [[UNIX]] Operating System. GNU brought massive success to the Free Software movement due to running on most mainline enterprise and university machines at the time, and providing an easy and democratized platform for development, wherein developers and users would not need to pay expensive licensing fees to have a quality OS in their machine and develop software for it.<ref>"''[https://www.channelfutures.com/open-source/open-source-history-why-did-linux-succeed Open-Source History: Why did Linux Succeed?]''" by Christopher Tozzi.</ref>
 
After having massive success, the Free Software movement was hijacked by capital, with it's most well-known version being the "Open-Source" movement, which does not have user freedoms as it's main goals, instead only taking advantage of the free labour that comes with having a community willing to contribute and allowing companies to effectively steal software without making their contributions public.<ref name=":1">[https://www.boringcactus.com/2020/08/13/post-open-source.html "''Post Open-Source''"] by BoringCactus</ref>
 
The movement for Free Software began to lose it's relevancy in capitalist circles after a last-ditch effort from the Free Software Foundation to curb the major influence of capital and the de-facto proprietarization of software under the GNU General Public License (GPL) with the creation of the GPLv3. The main intention of the GPLv3 was closing loopholes exploited by companies that allowed them to ship Free Software in hardware that could not be accessed and made to run modified versions of that software (a practice commonly called "Tivoization", named after the company that pioneered it).<ref name=":1" /><ref>"[https://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.en.html A Quick Guide to GPLv3]" by Brett Smith</ref>
 
After the threat posed to them by the GPLv3, companies which did not want to go back to their proprietary platforms and miss on the free labour started to fund alternatives to GPL-licensed software or began making software projects themselves, and the Free Software movement ended up being quickly replaced in the mainstream by it's capital-friendly cousin, the "Open-Source" Movement. The last straw on the FSF and the Free Software Movement's back was the decision of the Linux kernel to stay with GPLv2, which contained all the loopholes that the GPLv3 sought to fix.<ref name=":1" />
 
Nowadays, in left-wing software development, the FSF and the Free Software Movement are beginning to be abandoned<ref name=":1" /> after Richard M. Stallman's defence of right-wing politicians and pedophilia<ref>"''[https://www.thedailybeast.com/famed-mit-computer-scientist-richard-stallman-defends-epstein-victims-were-entirely-willing Renowned MIT Scientist Defends Epstein: Victims Were ‘Entirely Willing’]''" by Blake Montgomery</ref><ref>"''[https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/16/computer-scientist-richard-stallman-who-defended-jeffrey-epstein-resigns-from-mit-csail-and-the-free-software-foundation/ Computer scientist Richard Stallman, who defended Jeffrey Epstein, resigns from MIT CSAIL and the Free Software Foundation]''" by Catherine Shu</ref> along with revelations of discrimination against women and LGBTQ+ people in the FSF and other "old-school" Free Software movement spaces.<ref>"[https://www.zdnet.com/article/return-of-stallman-to-fsf-sparks-outrage-among-open-source-and-free-software-leaders/ Return of Stallman to FSF sparks outrage among open-source and free software leaders]" by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols</ref><ref>"''[https://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/Blogs/Off-the-Beat-Bruce-Byfield-s-Blog/New-Guard-and-Old-Guard-clash-at-Free-Software-Foundation New Guard and Old Guard clash at Free Software Foundation]''" by Bruce Byfield</ref> The socialist alternative to the GPL is nowadays thought to be the Anti-Capitalist Software License (ACSL), along with many other niche licenses that fill some functions of Free Software, while introducing usage limitations to government agencies or right-wing organizations (breaking freedom 0).<ref>[https://anticapitalist.software/ Anti-Capitalist Software License]</ref>
 
== References ==
<references />
[[Category:FOSS]]
[[Category:FOSS]]

Revision as of 22:49, 15 September 2021

A tongue-in-cheek photoshopped poster equating open source development to communism, based on an actual poster from the Recording Industry Association of America claiming that pirating MP3s is "downloading communism"

Free and open-source software (FOSS) or Libre Software is software that is free (as in freedom) to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve. For a piece of software to be considered Free and Open Source, it must comply to a small set of requirements laid down by the Free Software Foundation (FSF).

Relevance and Usage by Socialist Countries

FOSS (most times present in it's bastardized fashion, "Open-Source") is relevant to the world in multiple ways. There are many notable projects that are Free Software, including MediaWiki (the software ProleWiki is built on), GNU/Linux and OpenSSL.

Socialist countries such as China, Cuba and Korea (DPRK) have invested heavily on FOSS for both daily and government usage, mainly in the Operating System space, socialist FOSS projects of note include:

  • Red Star OS, a GNU/Linux Operating System that is privately used by Korean government officials. It is based on FOSS software and is proprietary due to it's nature as a tool for mostly government use.[1]
  • Nova, a GNU/Linux Operating System made by university students in Cuba focusing on security. Meant for both government and general use, and available to the public for free.[2]
  • PaddlePaddle, a machine learning developed by Baidu in collaboration with the Chinese government, mainly for use in search engines.[3]
  • COVID19-Cuba, an Android application used to aggregate data about the COVID-19 pandemic and help citizens stay away from regions with a high infection rate.[4]

Essential Freedoms

To be considered FOSS, a program must offer all of these freedoms[5]:

  • The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
  • The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
  • The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2).
  • The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

History and Loss of Prominence

The Free Software movement was created by Richard Matthew Stallman, a liberal[6] who believed that only for software in particular, freedom of distribution and modification was more important than the freedom of capital. The FSF sought to make FOSS widespread and succeeded in doing so with the release of it's GNU Operating System.[7][5]

The GNU Operating System, nowadays known as GNU/Linux or just Linux, sought to replace the proprietary and monopolized versions of the common UNIX Operating System. GNU brought massive success to the Free Software movement due to running on most mainline enterprise and university machines at the time, and providing an easy and democratized platform for development, wherein developers and users would not need to pay expensive licensing fees to have a quality OS in their machine and develop software for it.[8]

After having massive success, the Free Software movement was hijacked by capital, with it's most well-known version being the "Open-Source" movement, which does not have user freedoms as it's main goals, instead only taking advantage of the free labour that comes with having a community willing to contribute and allowing companies to effectively steal software without making their contributions public.[9]

The movement for Free Software began to lose it's relevancy in capitalist circles after a last-ditch effort from the Free Software Foundation to curb the major influence of capital and the de-facto proprietarization of software under the GNU General Public License (GPL) with the creation of the GPLv3. The main intention of the GPLv3 was closing loopholes exploited by companies that allowed them to ship Free Software in hardware that could not be accessed and made to run modified versions of that software (a practice commonly called "Tivoization", named after the company that pioneered it).[9][10]

After the threat posed to them by the GPLv3, companies which did not want to go back to their proprietary platforms and miss on the free labour started to fund alternatives to GPL-licensed software or began making software projects themselves, and the Free Software movement ended up being quickly replaced in the mainstream by it's capital-friendly cousin, the "Open-Source" Movement. The last straw on the FSF and the Free Software Movement's back was the decision of the Linux kernel to stay with GPLv2, which contained all the loopholes that the GPLv3 sought to fix.[9]

Nowadays, in left-wing software development, the FSF and the Free Software Movement are beginning to be abandoned[9] after Richard M. Stallman's defence of right-wing politicians and pedophilia[11][12] along with revelations of discrimination against women and LGBTQ+ people in the FSF and other "old-school" Free Software movement spaces.[13][14] The socialist alternative to the GPL is nowadays thought to be the Anti-Capitalist Software License (ACSL), along with many other niche licenses that fill some functions of Free Software, while introducing usage limitations to government agencies or right-wing organizations (breaking freedom 0).[15]

References

  1. ↑ Red Star OS Archive at ArchiveOS.
  2. ↑ Nova OS webpage.
  3. ↑ https://github.com/PaddlePaddle/Paddle
  4. ↑ COVID19-Cuba GitHub page.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "What is Free Software?" by the GNU Project.
  6. ↑ Richard M. Stallman's Political Notes
  7. ↑ "Detailed History of the GNU Project" by Richard Stallman
  8. ↑ "Open-Source History: Why did Linux Succeed?" by Christopher Tozzi.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 "Post Open-Source" by BoringCactus
  10. ↑ "A Quick Guide to GPLv3" by Brett Smith
  11. ↑ "Renowned MIT Scientist Defends Epstein: Victims Were ‘Entirely Willing’" by Blake Montgomery
  12. ↑ "Computer scientist Richard Stallman, who defended Jeffrey Epstein, resigns from MIT CSAIL and the Free Software Foundation" by Catherine Shu
  13. ↑ "Return of Stallman to FSF sparks outrage among open-source and free software leaders" by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
  14. ↑ "New Guard and Old Guard clash at Free Software Foundation" by Bruce Byfield
  15. ↑ Anti-Capitalist Software License
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