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Frequently Asked Questions

Unnecessary Fears

Linux and the applications software that run on it are produced primarily under the paradigm of OSS/FS. Some users avoid OSS/FS, not due to the issues noted elsewhere on this site, but due to unnecessary fears of OSS/FS. Let's counter some of them:

Q - Is proprietary software fundamentally better supported than OSS/FS?

A - No. There are actually two kinds of support for OSS/FS: traditional paid-for support and informal community support. There are many organisations who provide traditional support for a fee; since these can be competed (an option not available for proprietary software), you can often get an excellent price for support. Again, an anti-trust lawyer would say that OSS/FS support is "contestable." For example, many GNU/Linux distributions include installation support when you purchase their distribution, and for a fee they will provide additional levels of support. There are many independent organisations that provide traditional support for a fee as well.

Q - Does proprietary software give you more legal rights than OSS/FS?

A - No. Some have commented that "with OSS/FS you give up your right to sue if things go wrong." The obvious retort is that essentially all proprietary software licenses also forbid lawsuits - so this isn't different at all! Anyone who thinks that they can sue Microsoft or other shrink-wrap proprietary vendors when things go wrong is simply fooling themselves. In any case, most users aren't interested in suing vendors - they want working systems. See "A Senior Microsoft Attorney Looks at Open-Source Licensing", where Bryan Pfaffenberger argues that "With open-source software... you are, in principle, walking into the deal with your eyes wide open. You know what you're getting, and if you don't, you can find someone who does. Open-source licenses enable the community of users to inspect the code for flaws and to trade knowledge about such flaws, which they most assuredly do. Such licenses allow users to create derivative versions of the code that repair potentially hazardous problems the author couldn't foresee. They let users determine whether the programme contains adequate safeguards against safety or security risks.
In contrast, the wealthy software firms pushing UCITA are asking us to buy closed-source code that may well contain flaws, and even outright hazards attributable to corporate negligence - but they won't let us see the code, let alone modify it. You don't know what you're getting."

Finally, if the software goes wrong and it's very important, you can fix it yourself or pay to have it fixed; this option greatly reduces risk, and doesn't exist for proprietary software.

There is another legal difference that's not often mentioned. Many proprietary programmes require that users permit software license audits and pay huge fees if the organization can't prove that every use is licensed. So in some cases, if you use proprietary software, the biggest legal difference is that the vendors get to sue you!

Q - Does OSS/FS expose you to greater risk of abandonment?

A - No. Businesses go out of business, and individuals lose interest in products, in both the proprietary and OSS/FS world. A major difference, however, is that all OSS/FS programmes are automatically in escrow - that is, if their original developer stops supporting the product, any person or group can step forward to support it instead. This has been repeatedly demonstrated in OSS/FS. For example, the GIMP is a bitmapped graphical editor that was abandoned by its original developers (what's worse, they abandoned it before its initial release and failed to arrange for anyone else to succeed them). Nevertheless, even in this worst-case situation, after a period of time other users came forward and continued its development. As another example, NCSA abandoned its web server "httpd", so some of its users banded together to maintain it - its results became Apache, the world's most popular web server.

Q - Is OSS/FS economically viable?

A - Yes. There are companies that are making money on OSS/FS, or using OSS/FS to support their money-making activities. Many papers have been written about how to make money using OSS/FS, such as Eric S. Raymond's "The Magic Cauldron" and Donald K. Rosenberg's "How to make money with open-source software." OSS/FS isn't compatible with some business models, but capitalism does not guarantee that businesses can remain unchanged in changing environments.

For example,

Q - Will OSS/FS destroy the software industry? Won't programmemers starve if many programmes become OSS/FS?

A - No. It's certainly possible that many OSS/FS products will eliminate their proprietary competition, but that's the nature of competition. If OSS/FS approaches pose a significant threat to proprietary development approaches, then proprietary vendors must either find ways to compete or join the OSS/FS movement. No-one mourns the loss of buggy whip manufacturers, who were driven out of business by a superior approach to transportation (cars). Heinlein noted that no-one is guaranteed protection against change in Life-Line (1939): "There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private benefit."

Q - Is OSS/FS compatible with Capitalism?

A - Yes. Years ago some tried to label OSS/FS as "communistic" or "socialistic" (i.e., anti-capitalist), but that rhetoric has failed. One article explaining why OSS/FS and capitalism are compatible is "How Does the Capitalist View Open Source?". This paper shows that OSS/FS is quite consistent with capitalism: it increases wealth without violating principles of property ownership or free will. See the earlier notes on economic viability

Q - If only OSS/FS programmes exist in a software category, will that completely eliminate competition?

A - No. Oddly enough, OSS/FS programmes sometimes compete with each other in a given functional area. The text editors emacs (primarily GNU emacs) and vi (primarily vim) have duelled for decades. Sendmail is still a popular programme for delivering email, but it has competition from other OSS/FS programmes such as Postfix and Exim. The desktop environments GNOME and KDE compete with each other, as do the OS kernels of Linux and the BSDs. Generally, competing OSS/FS projects must distinguish themselves from each other to succeed (e.g., through user interface philosophies, design approaches, characteristics like security, licensing strategies, and so on), but of course that's true for competing proprietary programmes too. Also, competing OSS/FS programmes generally try to stay compatible with each other (because their customers demand it) and sometimes even help each other with technical problems. For example, freedesktop.org provides a forum to encourage cooperation among Open Source desktops for the X Window System (such as KDE and GNOME), and is part of the Free Standards Group which tries to accelerate the use and acceptance of Open Source technologies through the development, application and promotion of standards. In addition, even if there is one product, multiple organisations can compete for maintenance and support (e.g., GNU/Linux distributors do this). Thus, even if OSS/FS eliminates all proprietary programmes in a given category, that would still not eliminate competition.

Q - Is OSS/FS a "destroyer of intellectual property?"

A - No. You can use OSS/FS products (e.g., a word processor) to develop private and proprietary information, and you can keep the information as confidential and proprietary as you want. What you can't do is use someone else's material in a way forbidden by law... and this is true for all software, not just OSS/FS.

One interesting case is the "General Public License" (GPL), the most common OSS/FS license. Software covered by the GPL can be modified, but any release of that modified software must include an offer for the source code under the same GPL license. Basically, the GPL creates a consortium; anyone can use the programme, but you can't change the programme or use its code in another programme and make the results proprietary. Since the GPL is a legal document, it can be hard for some to understand. Here, on Slashdot is a less legal summary.

Q - Is there really a lot of OSS/FS software?

A - Yes. Freshmeat.net counts over 30,500 software branches of OSS/FS software as of June 2003. Sourceforge.net hosts over 55,000 OSS/FS projects all by itself (as of January 28, 2003). The dmoz list of just OS counts 114 OSS/FS OSes; this includes old systems (re-enabling their support), experiments, and specialised projects. There's little reason to believe that this counts all OSS/FS software, but it certainly indicates that there's a large amount of it. These projects vary in value and quality, of course, just as proprietary programmes do, but all of these OSS/FS projects can be the basis of future work.

Q - Is having the ability to view and change source code really valuable/important for many people?

A - Surprisingly, yes. It's certainly true that few people need direct access to source code; only developers or code reviewers need the ability to access and change code. But not having access to the way in which your computer is controlled is still a significant problem. Bob Young of Red Hat uses the analogy of having your car's hood welded shut to explain why even non-technical users need access to the source code. Here is his explanation, in his own words:

“Open source gives the user the benefit of control over the technology the user is investing in... The best analogy that illustrates this benefit is with the way we buy cars. Just ask the question, "Would you buy a car with the hood welded shut?" and we all answer an emphatic "No." So ask the follow-up question, "What do you know about modern internal-combustion engines?" and the answer for most of us is, "Not much."

We demand the ability to open the hood of our cars because it gives us, the consumer, control over the product we've bought and takes it away from the vendor. We can take the car back to the dealer; if he does a good job, doesn't overcharge us and adds the features we need, we may keep taking it back to that dealer. But if he overcharges us, won't fix the problem we are having, or refuses to install that musical horn we always wanted -- well, there are 10,000 other car-repair companies that would be happy to have our business.

In the proprietary software business, the customer has no control over the technology he is building his business around. If his vendor overcharges him, refuses to fix the bug that causes his system to crash or chooses not to introduce the feature that the customer needs, the customer has no choice. This lack of control results in high cost, low reliability and lots of frustration. ”

Q - Is OSS/FS really just an anti-Microsoft campaign?

A - No. Certainly there are people who support OSS/FS who are also against Microsoft, but it'd be a mistake to view OSS/FS as simply anti-Microsoft. Microsoft already uses OSS/FS software in its own applications; Windows' implementation of the basic Internet protocols (TCP/IP) was derived from OSS/FS code, and its Office suite depends on the OSS/FS compression library "zlib." Microsoft could, at any time, release programmes such as its OSes as OSS/FS, take an existing OSS/FS OS and release it, or provide applications for OSS/FS systems. There is no licensing agreement that prevents this. Indeed, OSS/FS leaders often note that they are not against Microsoft per se, just some of its current business practices, and many have repeatedly asked Microsoft to join them (e.g., see Free Software Leaders Stand Together).

In many cases OSS/FS is developed with and for Microsoft technology. On June 21, 2002, SourceForge listed 831 projects that use Visual Basic (a Microsoft proprietary technology) and 241 using C# (a language that originated from Microsoft). A whopping 8867 projects are listed as working in Windows. This strongly suggests that there are many OSS/FS developers who are not "anti-Microsoft."

Q - I've always assumed there's no free lunch; isn't there some catch?

A - If there is an OSS/FS product that meets your needs, there really isn't a catch. Perhaps the only catch is misunderstanding the term "free." The GPL includes this (haiku) text: "When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price." i.e., OSS/FS is not necessarily cost-free. Although in practice, it's still often a bargain.

Naturally, if you want services besides the software itself (such as guaranteed support, training, and so on), you must pay for those things just as you would for proprietary software. If you want to affect the future direction of the software - especially if you must have the software changed in some way to fit it to your needs - then you must invest to create those specific modifications. Typically these investments involve hiring someone to make those changes, possibly sharing the cost with others who also need the change. Note that you only need to pay a coder for the time it takes to change the software - you don't need to pay for permission to use the software, or a per-copy fee, only the actual cost of the changes.