class: center, middle # CSCI 395.86 <br> Open Source Software Development <br> ## Introduction to Open Source .author[ Stewart Weiss<br> ] .license[ Copyright 2020 Stewart Weiss. Unless noted otherwise all content in these slides is released under a<br> [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). ] --- ## Open Source Is Not Just the Code - Open source software is more than just software whose code is available. - It is inseparable from the community of people who contribute to it, who use it, and who actively work to support it in a myriad number of ways. - It is inseparable from the philosophy of sharing and freedom that spawned the **Free and Open Source Software** movements. - Open source is - an idea, - a philosophy that software should be **Free**, - a method of building software that involves people working together towards a common, shared goal, within a social structure of their own making, created with the hope that it ensures the project's success. - If you do not "buy into" this view, you will waste a lot of time trying to contribute to a project. --- ## Open Source Software is Everywhere - Free and open source software is all around us, more than you probably realize. Some examples: - The code that secures Internet transactions, _OpenSSL_; - The _Android_ operating system in many smartphones; - The _Firefox_ browser; - The _Linux_ kernel and operating system; - The code that many web developers use to build web pages, such as _Wordpress_ and _Drupal_. - Name some others that you use. - Look at [The Octoverse 2019](https://octoverse.github.com/), a report produced by _GitHub_, to see just how much activity happened in 2019 surrounding free and open source software. --- ## Supporting Institutions - There are many, many institutions that support free and open source software. Some of the major ones in the U.S. are: - [The Free Software Foundation](https://www.fsf.org) - [The Open Source Initiative](https://opensource.org) - [The Software Freedom Conservancy](https://sfconservancy.org) - [The Mozilla Foundation](https://foundation.mozilla.org) - [The Linux Foundation](https://www.linuxfoundation.org) - [The Creative Commons](https://creativecommons.org) and there are many others around the world. --- ## Openness In General - The free and open source software movement paved the way for a more general _philosophy of open access_, sometimes dubbed the __Open Source Way__ (see [The open source way](https://opensource.com/open-source-way)) or simply __Openness__. - Open encyclopedias such as [Wikipedia](https://wikipedia.org) - Open digital libraries such as [Internet Archive](https://archive.org) - Open maps such as [OpenStreetMap](https://www.openstreetmap.org) - Open data in general. There are thousands of open data sets. Government ones include: - municipalities like New York City: [NYC Open Data](https://opendata.cityofnewyork.us) - states, like New York State: [New York State Open Data](https://data.ny.gov/) - the federal government: [United States Open Government](https://www.data.gov/open-gov/) and many, many more. --- ## So How Did This Start? - The earliest commercial computers were shipped with their own _operating code_ so that users could customize the code for their needs. - There were no manuals, no instructions, no help from vendors for the shipped software - __users just had to figure it all out on their own__. - Code-sharing was common: It was a __culture of sharing__. -- - Typical hardware business model: - Buyers paid for hardware, the software did not matter much because it was not standardized - it worked only on the purchased hardware. - __Software had NO monetary value__. --- ## Free Software's Origins - During the 1970's software became a commodity: companies started selling it for profit. - Code became proprietary and closed. - The era of personal computers (PCs) arrived. Almost all are shipped with proprietary, closed code. - In 1983, Richard M. Stallman (RMS), who worked in the Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT, got fed up with not having access to the source code for the software of a newly installed laser printer. - Stallman set out on a mission to found a movement that would have profound effects on the world of computers. He wrote on _Usenet_ [1] > _Starting this Thanksgiving I am going to write a complete Unix-compatible > software system called GNU (for Gnu's Not Unix), and give it away > free to everyone who can use it._" .footnote[ 1 _Producing Open Source Software_ by Karl Fogel ] --- ## GNU and the Free Software Foundation - In 1985, RMS wrote the [GNU Manifesto](https://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html) and founded the __Free Software Foundation__ (__FSF__) to support the free software projects. - He defined the __Four Freedoms__ as the core tenets of the Free Software Movement (purposely starting with number zero) <br> .centered_80[.zero_list[ 1. _The freedom to run the software however you wish and for whatever reason you wish._ 1. _The freedom to study the software source code and make whatever changes you wish._ 1. _The freedom to copy and distribute the software (modified or not) however you wish._ 1. _The freedom to make improvements to the software and then share the improved version however you wish._ ]] Any software that does not guarantee these freedoms to its users cannot be considered “free” because it limits the users’ rights in some way. --- ## Software Licenses and the GPL - RMS and the FSF invented a class of __software licenses__ that turned copyright on its head, and they named them __copyleft__ licenses. - Copyleft software licenses ensure that software can never violate the Four Freedoms. - The invention of these licenses is probably his most significant contribution to software; it really paved the way for the open source movement that followed. --- ## The Open Source Movement's Origins - On January 22, 1998, _Netscape_ released its browser _Netscape Navigator_ together with its source code, drawing attention of businesses.[2] - Although interested in the concept, businesses were not keen on the politics of the FSF and the Free Software movement. - In February, Christine Peterson suggested "open source" to replace "free" to make the idea more appealing to businesses. - Later that month the __Open Source Initiative__ (__OSI__) was created by a group of advocates, with the mission of explaining and protecting the "open source label". .footnote[ 2 https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2008/01/22/january-22-1998-the-beginning-of-mozilla/ ] --- ## The Open Source Definition - OSI created a definition of open source software that was more detailed than Stallman's Free Software Definition, and called it the __Open Source Definition__ (__OSD__). - The OSD can be found on the OSI website: [https://opensource.org/osd](https://opensource.org/osd) - __The OSD defines valid software licenses__. - __The software license is what determines whether software is open source!__ - The OSD has ten separate requirements; the first three, abridged, are: 1. _The license cannot restrict anyone from selling or giving away the software as part of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several sources._ 2. _The program must include source code and allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form._ 3. _The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software._ - __If the license does not meet the definition, it is not open source!__ - __If there is NO license, it is not open source!__ (It is __code available__, not open source) --- ## Free Versus Open Source - There was and still is much contention about Free versus Open Source software. - The difference is mostly philosophical: - The Four Freedoms and Free software express an ideology and a moral point. - The OSI OSD expresses a practical system for supporting the expansion and growth of open source, acceptable to business interests. -- - Many people use the term __Free and Open Source Software__ (__FOSS__) to avoid the contention. We do the same. -- - Some people go further and use the term __Free Libre and Open Source Software__, aka __FLOSS__ to stress the "free" as in freedom, not "free" as in free beer. We do not. --- ## Overview of Copyright and Licenses - Whether software is FOSS depends on its license. - A license can only be applied by the copyright holder. -- - So ... - what is a license? - what is copyright? -- - The next few slides answer these questions. --- ## Copyright in a Nutshell - Roughly, __copyright__ is the legal right granted to the creator of a creative work to the exclusive publication, production, sale, or distribution of that work. - Usually the creator does not have to do anything to own that copyright. (This varies from one country to another.) -- - By default, the creator has _All Rights Reserved_, meaning no one has the right to do anything with the work except to use it as is allowed (e.g., listen to it, read it, view it, run it, and so on.)[3] - When all rights are reserved by the copyright owner, others cannot copy, reuse, redistribute, or do anything other than use the work. - The copyright owner __controls__ what can be done. .footnote[ 3 There is an international _fair use_ doctrine that specifies what are allowed uses for different kinds of works. ] --- ## Licenses in a Nutshell - If you want to give others the _permission_ to do certain things with your work, you do that by issuing a __license__. - A __license__ is a legal document that gives people permission to do specific things with the copyrighted work. --- ## Different Types of FOSS Licenses - There are many different FOSS licenses. It is a daunting number. - OSI has a list of licenses that are OSI-approved. See [https://opensource.org/licenses](https://opensource.org/licenses/). - They fall mostly into two categories: _copyleft_ and _permissive_. -- - Both copyleft and permissive licenses require that anyone who uses works licensed under them must have permission to view, modify, and share the source. -- - Permissive licenses allow someone who modifies the work and redistributes it to change the terms under which someone can use the new, modified work. Copyleft licenses do not. -- - This is a simplification. It is more complicated than this; some licenses are more permissive than others and there are other complications. - For now we keep it simple. --- ## Common FOSS Licenses - Some common permissive licenses: - The Apache License - The BSD License - The MIT License - Some common copyleft licenses: - The GNU Public License - The GNU Affero Public License - GNU Lesser General Public License - Hybrids: - The Mozilla Public License (weakly copyleft) --- ## Community and Software Licenses - When a software work has been written by many people, each person retains copyright over the portions that they contributed to the whole work. - It would be hard for decisions to be made about what can be done with that software if each copyright owner had a different set of rights. - Putting a project under a free and open source software license can simplify who can do what. - For example, most FOSS licenses require contributions to a project to be contributed and released under the same license as the original work. -- - If you contribute to a project with an OSI approved license, you still keep the copyright over your work, but your contribution is covered by the same license as the project and is open source. -- - This means your code is shareable, not secret. -- - It can be part of your portfolio. -- - You can show it to a prospective employer. --- ## FOSS versus Not FOSS - If you write code for an employer, whether as employee, intern, or even sometimes as an independent contractor, it is __work for hire__, unless you have a contract that states otherwise. - Work for hire is any created work that can be copyrighted like songs, stories, essays, sculptures, paintings, graphic designs, or computer programs. -- - Beware: - You do not own the copyright. - You cannot share your code with anyone or put it in your portfolio. - You cannot show it to a prospective employer. --- ## Sources 1. VM Brasseur, _Forge Your Future with Open Source_, The Pragmatic Programmers, LLC. 2018. 1. Karl Fogel, _Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project_, O'Reilly Media, 2009. 1. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html 1. https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2008/01/22/january-22-1998-the-beginning-of-mozilla 1. https://opensource.org/licenses ---