Open Source Software
Introduction:
The
use of Open Source Software (OSS) has grown and continues to grow both in
America and worldwide. Since its invention more and more people have been using
it for various reasons. This paper gives a short explanation of what OSS is and
what is the background of this software. Besides providing the history and
background of Open Source software, the goal of this research paper is to show
the legal, ethical, and security problems of Open Source software in our
environment, using GNU/Linux as an example. Another purpose is to list the
benefits of Open Source Software that affect small businesses, home users, and
uses for academic purposes.
Background:
Open
Source Software is free software which is composed of open-source codes and is
available for use in program applications (Phyllis, 2006). The
free software movement is not about software that doesn't cost anything. The
movement is about the people's freedom to use software as they want, modify the
software to their needs and distribute changes to others. Free is an
abbreviation of freedom (Beaton and Sweeny, 2001). Nearly thirty years ago
Richard Stallman founded the Free Software Foundation to promote free software
under the General Public License (GPL). In an interview with David Taber in
2006 Richard Stallman said: “I decided to develop an operating system that
would be free software, would run on modern computers, and be portable.” Because
he was passionate about providing the society with free software he dropped out
of MIT and started working on GNU project in January, 1984. Through the years
he developed most parts of the system, but in 1992 added a program called Linux
to the GNU project, which made it complete and ready to use. He named it
GNU/Linux, however nowadays it is most commonly known just by Linux (Taber,
2006).
Potential
Benefits:
OSS
has three potential benefits. According to Phyllis Walker one of the main
benefits of OSS is that many professional computer users can read, improve, and
fix bugs within the source code. For example with Open Source Software
companies can tailor it to their specific needs, because the source code is
available to them. The second benefit of open source is cost efficiency. Most
of the OSS is cheaper than the proprietary software (Phyllis, 2006). The last advantage
of OSS is that it has support and upgrade streams available. A good reason for
people to use open source software such as GNU/Linux could be because of the
following recent research that shows Linux's market share of the server market
has reached approximately 24%, with 52% of business users replacing Windows
servers with Linux servers (Kalinam and Czyzycki, 2005).
Legal
issues:
Richard
Stallman could not create the OSS because he had some issues with copyright; so
he created copyleft. Copyright asks for the person not to share the software,
which was a major problem for Richard Stallman because he wanted OSS be shared
and modified by the users. To solve this problem he created the copyleft
license. Richard Stallman (2006) said that copyleft is a technique for using
copyright. According to George Pike (2002) a copyleft is a form of an
intellectual property agreement, which permits any users to reproduce and
modify the orginal creation, but at the same time develop new and different
creations.
Ethical
issues:
One
of the ethical issues that one might notice is that as GNU/Linux was becoming
popular, and when more and more people started using it, they did not realize
that they were using GNU/Linux not just Linux. People began calling GNU/Linux
system just by Linux. They gave all of the credits to the creator of Linux,
Linus Torvalds, who just added that last missing part; whereas GNU group was
the one who have worked on it for the past years. This act is ethically wrong,
because both GNU and Linux teamed up to build this system, and both of their
names should be used. This software is called GNU/Linux not just Linux.
Security
issues:
Although
most of the open source software has potential benefits, there are some
security issues with OSS. Most of the OSS users might be concerned about the
security of it because it is built by communities, because the source code is
available for everyone, hackers and malicious users can access it as well.
Another security issue might be that not all of the OSS has support. Meaning
that when an OSS is hacked there is no specific person whom you could contact
with to fix this problem. Therefore people should choose the OSS that has
support line.
Further
Research:
Further
research about this topic can be done on the differences between the
proprietary companies and open source software. Another suggestion would be to
take a specific OSS and analyze it and tell who uses that specific OSS and how it
is created. Some OSS that are popular and that are widely used by college
students are the following software: Apache HTTP server (web server), Blender
(3D graphics and animation), DSpace (digital repository), EPrints (digital
repository), The GIMP (image editor), and Mozilla Firefox which is a web
browser (Metcalfe, 2005).
Conclusion:
There
are many advantages of open source software, however there are some ethical, legal,
and security problems with OSS. The ethical problem with OSS, such as
GNU/Linux, would be the name recognition of the programmers of these systems.
Linux is not the complete software that you could install to your PC; the complete
name of the system is called GNU/Linux which is an OSS for modern computers.
Another type of issue that businesses might come along with is the security
issue of OSS. The security issue that OSS might have is that since anybody can
modify it, hackers and malicious users can access and destroy the system, which
makes it risky for businesses to use open source software (). Because of the
legal issues that Dr. Stallman had with copyright he could not start working on
his GNU project. Because of this issue copyleft was created, which nowadays is widely
used. People should be supporters of OSS for several reasons. The most
important reason is that OSS gives them the freedom of software that people
deserve. Additionally OSS improves computer users intellectually. Users can be
encouraged to learn how to fix problems themselves, because the source code is
available for them.
References
Beaton, S.,
& Sweeny, L. J. (2001, Feb 21). History of hacking, part IV. Ripsaw.
This
article explains the importance of GNU tools in Linux. It highlights some of
the facts why Linux became popular in the past years. The authors of this
article are trying to persuade its readers to get OSS. They think open source
software should be a lasting contribution to the hacker community.
George, H. P.
(2002). What is right about a copyleft? Information Today, 19(4), 22-24.
This
source explains the difference between copyright and copyleft. The author gives
specific examples of both of these copyrights and explains, in depth, what
rights they give to users.
Kalina, I.,
& Czyzycki, A. (2005). The ins and outs of open source. Consulting to
Management,
16(3),
41-46. Retrieved
October 3, 2012, from http://search.proquest.com/docview/215900500?accountid=14541
The
writers in this scholarly journal use question and answer method to convey
their ideas. This source is very helpful, because it is straight to the point. It
also gives the advantages and disadvantages of open source software.
Metcalfe,
R. (2005). OSS Watch - Examples of Open Source Software. OSS Watch - open
source software advisory service. Retrieved October 4, 2012, from
This
is a website that gives examples of Open Source Software. Meanwhile this
website helps the OSS users if they have any problem using the software.
Phyllis, L. W.
(2006, OPEN-SOURCE FREE SOFTWARE: Benefits, features, and uses.
Contract
Management, 46, 18-22,24. Retrieved October 4, 2012, from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/196310064?accountid=14541
This
source gives a general overview of the history of OSS. It is a reliable source
because it was published in National Contract Management Association magazine,
which is one of the credible magazines.
States,
i. p., & Privacy, p. i. (n.d.). Open source software security. ComputerWeekly.com
Information Technology (IT) News, UK IT Jobs,
Industry News.
Retrieved October 4, 2012, from http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Open-source-software-security
This
source discuses the security issues of free Open Source Software (Foss). At the
end of the paper the writers discus the difference between Free Open Source
Software and proprietary software. This website publishes weekly articles about
different topics in different fields of computers.
Taber, D. (2006,
Unleashing the freedom to share: An interview with free software
innovator
richard stallman. Peacework, 33, 12-13. Retrieved October 3, 2012,
from http://search.proquest.com/docview/194479939?accountid=14541
This
article is a valid source of information because it is an interview with the
creator of the GNU project, Richard Stallman. In this interview Richard
Stallman gives answers to some questions related to ethical issues of Open
Source Software.
