When you delve into the literature on Free / Libre Open Source Software #foss #floss, you will learn that, in the beginning, all software was free and open. We are mainly talking here about the time at Universities like MIT and Stanford, when researchers, developers and students, just were
not using any licenses at all. They were developing software .... Together. Sharing and copying code to make better, safer and more secure programs. Open Source had proven itself, but not protected itself.
We are not going to delve deeply in to the history of software, but key events where the "Open letter to Hobbyists" from Bill Gates (jan 1976) which really kicks off the proprietary movement, the foundation of the Free Software Foundation by Richard Stallman a process which started with the GNU project in 1983 and the start of Open Software Initiative by Eric Raymond in 1998. The whole history is well described by Eric Raymond in his book "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" (Raymond, 1997).
So the software society came from sharing all code as a shared good from everybody to a situation where certain individuals started to see software as a means of making lots, lots of money. The proprietary movement kicked off and was very successful (harmful). But remember, Software was less important in the eighties of the last century, when there were lots of companies that only had one computer. IT didn't have the dominance it has today.
For people born after, let's say, 1995, it's sometimes difficult to comprehend. Like my daughter once said: How did you live without the Internet? Although the worldwide Internet was born in 1982 by the merger of Arpa Net and EU Net, and e-mailing was already possible in 1972, in the minds of most people, it emerged at the end of the nineties, at the beginning of this century.
We went from no computers, to some computers, to computers everywhere, every day of our lives. It's not difficult to understand that the discussion of proprietary software versus Open Source software was less important in the 1980s compared to now. It's quite a difference if a tiny aspect of your life is influenced by closed software or every aspect of your life is controlled by proprietary software.
Two very important drivers of Open Source technology where of course Internet and web browsers and Linux. In a period of what some people call the browser wars. Open Source browsers like Chromium and Firefox became the defacto standard, mainly because they implemented the open standards better. The Linux operating system became the backbone of the Internet and data centers, while the Apache web server took the Internet by storm. Currently, it's estimated that 95% of the Internet runs on free and Open Source Software.
In the beginning of the software wars, the ideology or philosophy behind free and open source software was not the leading factor, at least not for the main body of people who started using it. Currently, India has the highest prevalence of Linux installations on the desktop, at around 12%. People in India do not install Linux on their desktops because they like the ideology better. They install Linux on the desktop because it's cheaper.
In the last ten years, all over the world, companies have started collecting more and more data. Data became a gold mine instead of a burden. Using Data Science technologies, data could be combined and harvested. This, of course, leads to concerns in the society, but also to governmental concerns.
On the other hand, more and more security issues arose, and proprietary companies were not able to mitigate the damage and harm enough. While FOSS tools could be easier checked on their security, by just looking at the source code.
So Data and Security became mayor drivers in the software wars.
Especially Switzerland, the EU, Canada and New Zealand made regulations that favored free and open source software. Still, the war is not won yet. Companies, governments and individuals do not have enough knowledge of foss and hesitate. The lobby of proprietary software companies also plays a big part in this dramatic opera in three pieces. Quite hypocrite as the Azure, AWS and Google Cloud all run on Free and Open Source Software.
Still, too many people believe that foss software is of a lesser quality, compared to proprietary software, when in truth it's often the opposite.
The main issues with the sustainability of foss software is the funding. There are a couple of different business models we have discussed before. But, as a rule of thumb, proprietary software makes more money.
So slowly we see the world of software moving towards free and open source software. We at Open Source Science are educating people to work and live in the open source industry. On November 23, 2024, in the Lochal in Tilburg our CEO gives a lecture about foss education.
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