Slide presented at ICoEC 2015 on Free/Open Source Software and E-Commerce. http://icoec.my/index.php/icoec-2015/tentative-programme

1. ICoEC 2015ICoEC 2015
UnderstandingUnderstanding
Free/Open Source Software (FOSS)Free/Open Source Software (FOSS)
andand
the Benefit to E-Commercethe Benefit to E-Commerce

2. 2
Outline
● Introduction
● Proprietary Software
● Open Source Software (OSS)
● Sample of OSS
● 10 Advantages of E Commerce using OSS

3. 3
Introduction
● Executives/Businesses have traditionally viewed
proprietary software/systems as safer, lower-risk
options.
● Recent times increased scrutiny of capital expenditure
has forced corporations to consider alternative
technologies to extract maximum value from their IT
budgets.
● While cost is an important factor, businesses are also
looking hard at other benefits of open source, such as
interoperability, flexibility, and access to the underlying
code in their systems.

4. 4
● Having the right type of software is essential for running a
business as efficiently as possible in the global marketplace
● When it comes to choosing software for business purposes,
or even creating a website, you generally have one of two
choices when it comes to choosing a software platform
● choose to use proprietary software (trademarked and likely
requires or purchase a license) or you can use open-source
software, which is free software that you can download and
pay no licensing fees to use.

5. 5
Introduction
● Cost is a crucial criterion in almost every
business decision, and increasingly so in IT
strategy as businesses seek to maintain
competitive advantage
● Can open source software be THE SOLUTION??

6. 6
PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE

7. 7
PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE

8. 8
● Software update
means
– Hardware Upgrade
– More Money
(Licenses)
PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE

9. 9
PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE
● MathWorks MATLAB
● Microsoft Visio
● Microsoft Project
● Mindjet
● Adobe Illustrator
● Adobe Photoshop
● AutoCAD
● Authorize.net
● Microsoft Money
(Plus)
● Windows Media Player
● Oracle
● OrCAD

10. 10
PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE
● Proprietary software, non-free software, or closed-
source software
● where the developers or distributors reserve all
freedoms and rights of:
● the freedom to analyze the software, and to change it (often deprived
through intentional non-availability of sourcecode, or through Non-
disclosure agreements (NDA))
● the freedom to share the software (often deprived through copy prohibition
via EULA (End User License Agreement) or NDA)
● the freedom to run the software for any purpose (often deprived through
user-restrictions via EULA)
● Along with $$$$

11. 11
Proprietary Software
Microsoft & EULA (End User
License Agreement)
● You give up all rights
● You accept all obligations placed on you
for limited benefit
● You may not share the software
● You may not change the software
● You do not own the software
● You may only install the software to one
device
● 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

12. 12
Open Source Software (OSS)
● Open-source software (OSS) is computer software
with its source code made available with a license
in which the copyright holder provides the rights to
study, change, and distribute the software to
anyone and for any purpose
● Also known as (FS) Free Software (Richard
Stallman → Free Software Foundation)

13. 13
Open Source Software (OSS)
The Open Source Definition,
● presents an open-source philosophy, and
further defines the terms of usage,
modification and redistribution of open-
source software
● Software licenses grant rights to users
which would otherwise be reserved by
copyright law to the copyright holder.

14. 14
Open Source Software
● The Free Software (FS) Foundation (FSF), started in
1985, intended the word "free" to mean freedom to
distribute (or "free as in free speech") and not freedom
from cost (or "free as in free beer")
● Since a great deal of free software already was (and still
is) free of charge, such free software became
associated with zero cost, which seemed anti-
commercial
● Free Software, Open Source Software == FOSS

15. 15
Open Source Software
● The Free Software Foundation (FSF), started in 1985,
intended the word "free" to mean freedom to distribute
(or "free as in free speech") and not freedom from cost
(or "free as in free beer")
● Since a great deal of free software already was (and still
is) free of charge, such free software became
associated with zero cost, which seemed anti-
commercial
● Free Software, Open Source Software == FOSS

16. 16
Samples of FOSS

17. 17

18. 18
GNU (Project consist of several apps)
Richard Stallman
GNU = GNU is Not Unix (a recursive
acronym!)
Project to implement a completely free
Unix-like operating system
● Started by Richard Stallman in 1984, anRichard Stallman in 1984, an
MIT researcherMIT researcher, in a time when Unix
sources were 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!!
GNU

19. 19
Linux (kernel)
Linus Torvald
● 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)
TUX

20. 20
Unix (family tree)
Time1970 19901980 2000
Bell Labs (AT&T)
Ken Thompson
Dennis Ritchie (C language
created to implement a portable OS)
BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution)
Sun Solaris
SunOS (Stanford University Network)
NetBSD
NextStep
AIX (IBM)
HP­UX
IRIX (SGI)
SRV5
OpenBSD
FreeBSD
MacOS X
Bill Joy
Richard Stallman
Linus Torvalds
BSD family
System V familyRitchie, Thompson
GNU
Bill Joy
GNU / Linux

21. 21
Linux Kernel Evolution

22. 22
GNU/Linux DISTRIBUTIONS (Distros)
OS based on GNU/Linux

23. 23
Mozilla Firefox
Most advanced and friendly web
browser & No 1 browser
http://mozilla.org/projects/firefox
● 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

24. 24
LibreOffice
● Main developer: The Document Foundation
● Support Open Document Format (ODF) to
provide freedom
● 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.
●
Google also supports the LibreOffice project
● LibreOffice is licensed under the terms of the
LGPLv3
● Alternative to Microsoft Office
http://www.libreoffice.org/

25. 25
It took 10 years (2003-2013)
to do the transformation

26. 26
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:
● 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.

27. 27
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.

28. 28
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”

29. 29
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 re-license 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.

30. 30
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
FOSS Licences - Copyleft

31. 31
FOSS Licences - Copyleft

32. 32
10 eCommerce
advantages that come
with OSS
By: Abbe Miller, marketing manager at NetSphere Strategies (Chicago)

33. 33
1. Costs are less.
● OSS licensing fees and software acquisition
costs are relatively inexpensive, if not free,
thanks in part to the lack of associated branding
and marketing expenses.
● Examples of free OSS are Apache web server,
Linux operating system, JBoss application server
and Eclipse development tools.

34. 34
2. Avoid vendor lock-in.
● Companies don’t want to be strangled by their
vendors. Why pay a vendor for a needless upgrade
simply to maintain compatibility with others using
the same software? When you get in too deep with
a particular product suite, it becomes increasingly
difficult to be the “captain of your ship.”
● OSS is about freedom and choice – shifting the
balance of power back to the customer.

35. 35
3. Flexibility of deployment.
● Since OSS is distributed with no licensing
restrictions regarding implementation, companies
can respond quickly to changing circumstances by
installing additional copies to meet development
and scalability needs at no cost.
● Install it as many times and in as many locations as
you need. There’s no need to count, track or
monitor for license compliance.

36. 36
4. Licenses are clear.
● GNU General Public License is a model of
simplicity compared with commercial alternatives.
● The license's basic stipulation that software
changes that are released to anyone must be
released to everyone couldn't be easier to
understand. Since the GPL is so widely adopted,
fewer resources are wasted on legal costs and
fighting over esoteric language and exceptions.

37. 37
5. Responsiveness to company needs.
● Unlike the one-size-fits-all approach of
commercial software where the software must
be used as-is or risk voiding the warranty, OSS
source code availability enables companies to
easily add the functionality they need versus
buying bloated software vendor packages for
features they might never use.

38. 38
6. Protection against obsolescence.
● Open source lives in the community, which
means there will always be developers to support
it. Or, you can always fall back on using the
source code to make your own modifications.
● No matter what solution you buy, you will always
have to customize it.
● Start with a lower-cost solution and customize it
from there.

39. 39
7. Perspective.
● While some organizations are wary of using OSS
because it lacks a clear "throat to choke," other
companies recognize the problems that come
from putting all of their eggs in one basket.

40. 40
8. Has its place.
● LAMP (Linux/OS, Apache/web server,
MySQL/database and PHP/Perl/Python/program
languages) is becoming a fixture at the Web tier
– as proven by Amazon, Google and Yahoo, while
J2EE apps still rule at the Server tier or back-
office operations.

41. 41
9. Breadth of offerings.
● There is an amazing array of available open-
source products with hundreds of thousands of
open-source products just waiting to be
downloaded.
● No matter what type of product you're looking
for, chances are there are one or more OSS
options for you.

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10. Quality.
● Community development leads to more reliable and
secure code.
● Fixes and enhancements are built and distributed
faster because the developers are also the users.
● Excellence in design and efficiency in coding are also
possible because of the peer review process that is
inherent in its community standards.
● And if you don't like something about the software,
you can just fix it yourself.

43. 43
Conclusion
● OSS is about:
● Freedom (without strict restriction), vendor lock
in
● Advanced Technology open for Innovation
● Not really about $$$$$..
● Sustainability

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THE END
QnA