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PRIVACY IN CYBERSPACE

The Free Software and Open Source Movements

History

Historically, software was distributed for free to accompany hardware. The software was distributed in a form (known as source code) which allowed easy modification by anyone with the requisite knowledge. End users were technically sophisticated people who needed to be able to change the program to do their work. In the 1980s, however, some companies started to release software in a form which was difficult to modify. These companies also forbade the end user from modifying or redistributing the software. In 1976, Bill Gates wrote a letter urging computer hobbyists to stop sharing software in order to provide incentives for the creation of quality software. Ultimately, Microsoft’s phenomenal business success resulted from its centralized and controlled approach to software development.

As companies began to restrict modification and redistribution of software, Richard Stallman founded the GNU Project and the Free Software Movement. At the heart of the GNU Project is an innovative use of copyright law, the GNU General Public License (GPL). Software licensed under the GPL can be freely modified and redistributed, provided that it is redistributed under the same terms. Someone who incorporates software licensed under the GPL into a proprietary software is in breach of contract and loses their right to redistribute the software.

Notable Projects

Sourceforge.net, one of the most popular sites that coordinate free software and open source development, lists nearly 70,000 active projects. A few of the most ubiquitous free software projects include:

Linux: Linux is an implementation of the Unix Kernel written from scratch with no proprietary code. The kernel is the part of the operating system that communicates directly with the hardware. An increasing portion of the infrastructure of the Internet runs on top of the Linux kernel.
GNU: GNU stands for “GNU’s Not Unix,” and the GNU project provides many of the fundamental tools that together with the Linux kernel form the basic GNU/Linux Operating System.
Mozilla: Mozilla is a web browser that originally comes from the Netscape code base. In July of 2003, AOL, the corporate owner of Netscape, spun off the development of Mozilla into a 501c3 nonprofit known as the Mozilla Foundation.
OpenOffice: OpenOffice is an open source set of programs that provide functionality similar to that of Microsoft Office (e.g., word processor, spreadsheet, presentations).

A Note about Terminology

The term free software emphasizes the freedom aspects: freedom to modify, and freedom to distribute. Open source software, a closely allied movement, tends to emphasize availability of the source code and the quality of the product. Richard Stallman criticizes the open source movement for attempting to depoliticize the approach to make it more palatable to commercial interests, but ultimately the differences between free software and open source are quite limited. Lawrence Lessig avoids the whole linguistic debate by calling it “open code.” Some advocates, particularly in the international sphere, describe the software collectively as “Free/Libre/Open Source Software,” or FLOSS.

Optional Readings

In the Beginning, There Was the Command Line from Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon. This is a fairly lengthy but non-technical essay describing the history and social ramifications of various computer Operating Systems and the free software/open source movements.
Coase’s Penguin by Yochai Benkler: an economic analysis of the open source development model (which Benkler calls “peer-production”) as compared to traditional methods of organizing production. Benkler illustrates how peer-production is more efficient than the firm or the market in allocating resources in certain cases, particularly where the product in question is information. Benkler concludes that the free software movement is only one example of a much broader social-economic phenomenon.

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