Overview of Free/Open Source Software for Librarians

Eric Goldhagen

eric@openflows.org

GNU and LINUX

Richard Stallman

GNU (GNU Not Unix)

Started writing free software utilities for unix in 1984

Stallman personally wrote an impressive amount of software

Founded GNU and Free Software Foundation
http://gnu.org http://www.fsf.org

By 1991 GNU created all the elements of a free OS except a kernel

Linus Torvalis

Linux

Wrote linux kernel in 1991

Linux was released under GPL,
the software license written by Richard Stallman

Important Terms:

Software is written as text (source code)

Software is most often distributed as an application (binary) that runs in a specific operating system and type of hardware (architecture)

Source code is modified (compiled) by another program (compiler) to create a binary

Free software and open source are in most cases equivalent and may be found abbreviated as FOSS, F/OSS or FLOSS

What Do You Mean Free?

Free as in Speech (always)

Free as in Beer (sometimes)

Free to read source code and evaluate it for security and other reasons

Free to modify source code for your own use

Free to distribute your modifications

Free to anyone for any use

More extensive definition at http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php

Freedom Backed by License

The freedoms associated with F/OSS are protected by software licenses

There are many different licenses for F/OSS

GPL (GNU General Public License)

Strong copyleft license, all code modifications must be released

BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution)

Permissive and non-copyleft, allows for easier bundling of f/oss with commercial tools.

LGPL (GNU Lesser GPL)

Compromise between GPL and BSD-like licenses. Not a strong copyleft license, because it permits linking with non-free modules.

See http://fsf.org for full list of free/open source licenses

Why Should Librarians Care About Software Licenses?

Discussions of software license, fair use
and copyright overlap

Creative Commons License for content
is an outgrowth of F/OSS

End User License Agreements (EULA's) limit rights

Free/open source licenses protect freedom and rights

You never own commercial software

Public access can be restricted by EULA's

Software licenses are a drain on limited library budgets

Knowledge as information vs. knowledge as property

Radical Reference: Tools
Drupal for Website

Content Management System

Provides web interface to create, modify and otherwise
maintain content on the website

Modular and extensible

Over 200 code modules exist to add features and
content types to the system

100% Free / released under GPL

LAMP (linux, apache, mysql, [php | python | perl])

Large international development community

Over 1000 developers over the past 5 years have added code

Over 200 developers have added code in the past 6 months

Download and find out more at http://drupal.org

Radical Reference: Tools Lightningbug for Reference

GPL / LAMP

Developed for the counterconvention.org site

Designed to facilitate collaboration in vetting site content

Modified to work in the context of
answering reference questions

Some of those changes were added to the distributed code

Small development community

Very responsive to users of system

Code under active development with fixes and new features being added on a regular basis

Available at http://lightningbug.sourceforge.net/

Summary

Software licenses/EULA's restrict fair-use

Commercial software is never owned, but leased

Commercial software is guided by the desires of the marketing department; F/OSS is guided by the needs of the users and the whims of the programmers

F/OSS creates a dynamic where collectivity and competition are not mutually exclusive concepts

F/OSS creates a culture where contribution and participation are valued over ownership.

What FLOSS to Use?

Filling in the Blanks

Free Software Foundation http://fsf.org

GNU http://gnu.org

Open Source Initiative http://www.opensource.org

NOSI (Nonprofit Open Source Initiative) http://nosi.net

Linux distributions

Debian http://debian.org

Redhat http://redhat.com Fedora http://fedora.redhat.com

Ubuntu http://ubunto.com

Gnoppix http://gnoppix.org

Where to find f/oss

Sourceforge http://sourceforge.net

Freshmeat http://freshmeat.net

On line Resources for More Information on the Topics Covered

Credits

Presentation created with Open Office 1.1

Created using a salvaged computer running Debian LINUX

Presentation theme distributed free with Open Office 1.1

On line sources used for this presentation are all listed on the “Filling in the blanks” page

simple intro

radref, i am techie for project

interactivst, project I founded that serves the radref site, based out of abc no rio computer center

openflows, my company that develops f/oss for non profits, unions, health care orgs and media groups

the initial version of what we call linux is linus's kernel and Richard's everything else

GNU/Linux is the foundation upon which nearly all FLOSS is built

different distributions of Linux aimed at diff groups and diff ways of using it some are free as in beer some are not

Stallman, having seen early public domain 'free” software tools end up being stolen from the public by software corporations, set out to create a license that would permanently put code in the public domain

(hit on the idea of stallman reacting to the takin gof things in the public domain and removing them from the public domain and how that should sound familiar to any librarian following the google print project)

BSD is also a “free” operating system and while both bsd and gnu/linux are unix and free they are not interchangeable

just give the concepts that code is separate from application and that there is an important freedom in being able to see the source as without it you can never fix any bugs

gpl is copyleft

i own it but you can have it for whatever you want but you have to share what you create also

bsd allows for not sharing what you create

there are categories of open source licenses based on how much copyleft is in them

Between version 2 and 2.1, the GNU LGPL was renamed from the GNU Library General Public License to the GNU Lesser General Public License to better reflect its actual purpose. (libraries as in code not in books and librarians)

open source is about open standards and public domain access

opensource is about shared information and knowledge

without the idea of fair use, libraries could not exist. f/oss applies that idea to technology

this might sound insane, but modern libraries came into existance as the world moved into a new age; as feudal imperialism gave way to parlimentary democracy. The access to knowledge outside of the Nobility created the foundation of a new world. I strongly believe that the creation of a mass of public domain software tools and the culture that is created around that process has the potential to alter society in an equally as profound way.

any information used in this presentation that came from on line sources was from sites in the above list

2006-02-26T16:37:00