What is Free Software?

Traditionally regarded as the specialized tools of hardcore programmers and the hacker 1337 (i.e. the hacker elites), Open-Source and Free Software1 seem to be at the threshold of a new stage of adoption. Perhaps my perspective has been distorted by my own transition to Free Software, but it seems to me that more people in more disciplines are turning to Free alternatives. Admittedly, there is that percentage of users (such as my wife) who really couldn't care less what sort of software they use, as long as it works. This percentage seems to be shrinking, though, and an growing number of people seems to be ready for an alternative to the restricted functionality and spotty performance offered by many of the major proprietary software systems. I personally am not what I would consider an "advanced" programmer, and I'm certainly not a 1337. At best, I'd consider myself a decent researcher and a competent scientist. I just grew sick of having to contort my data and my methods to fit the narrow range of functionality offered by Profit-driven Closed-Source systems. Moreover, adopting a Free, Open-Source platform didn't suddenly improve the quality or pace of my researcher. If it had, I would have graduated by now. What it did do was trigger a very subtle, but significant, change in my approach. Whereas my work was previously driven by the need to design my methods to fit the tools, I now find myself designing the tools to fit my methods. The land cover and climate correlation to species richness analysis I'm presently working on, for instance, cannot be done in ArcGIS. Only GRASS is flexible enough to handle a 30m land cover grid of the coterminous United States. I believe that this is part of a general trend that I've noticed about Free Software. Using Free Software preserves (or reawakens) that initial spark of excitement that attracts people to computers: instead of the software, what you can do with your computer is once again limited only by your imagination and your skills. This freedom to create is what true "hackers" love about computers, and this is why proprietary systems will never win the battle against Free Software.

People who lack that spark of creativity, however, or those who direct it toward a different medium often misunderstand the philosophy and purpose of Free Software. Some still think that its only for "computer people", and others, particularly those in the business of restricting the free flow of information, view Free Software with open suspicion and hostility. Still others have been taken in by the "you get what you pay for" philosophy so commonly touted by software retailers and marketers. In reality, many Free Software applications have larger support bases than proprietary systems, and the people providing the support are either the ones who designed the system, the ones using the system, or (frequently) both! On top of that, these user-support communities are usually freely available, and don't require an expensive warranty. For those who need a telephone number, on-call technical support can be purchased for many of the Free Software Projects. Free Software systems also tend to be updated more frequently than proprietary systems, and therefore have fewer bugs that require support in the first place.

Free Software systems also have a larger pool of more experienced programmers supporting them. Take, for instance, the team of programmers responsible for Microsoft ® Office. While I've had some trouble finding the credits for the latest version of Office online (I admit, I didn't look very hard), my recollection of the development of Office 2007 is that it was designed and implemented by a select team of specialized programmers, developers, marketers, etc. When they finished hammering out a beta version, they released it to a given number of volunteer "beta testers" for a nominal marketing fee. I was actually one of those beta testers, an experience that contributed significantly to my decision to move to Ubuntu. Once the developers had ironed out enough of the major bugs to make the software profitable, they released the product. Subsequent bugs are ranked based on their severity and their prevalence and are then sent to a select group of programmers who release the fixes in periodic "Service Packs" or "Critical Updates". Now compare that development model to the leading Free business application suite, OpenOffice.org. In the latter case, the user community and the developer and programming community are the same entity. The developers and programmers are users from around the world who each contribute their unique expertise to the project. The project is governed by an elected "Community Council" that receives technical advice from an "Engineering Steering Committee". Bugs will still occur, but anyone in the community who has the desire and sufficient technical competence can contribute fixes. These fixes will also be transparent to the rest of the community, so sneaking a malicious bit of code into the project is not feasible. Not only does this community-level development make the product more affordable ('free' is, after all, about as affordable as it gets), but it also yields a product with a level of quality at least equal to, if not superior than, its proprietary counterpart.

In an effort to dispel many of the myths surrounding Free Software and the utility of software patents, the Free Software Foundation has published the following handout. If my brief analysis didn't convince you to consider using Free Software, perhaps their more thorough review will.

• "What is Free Software?" (PostScript)
• "What is Free Software?" (PDF)
• LaTeX Source Code

You are welcome--in fact encouraged--to download this manual and share it with whomever you like. If you are interested in becoming more involved in the Free Software community, consider joining the Free Software Foundation today!

1. 1. While I sometimes appear to use the terms "Open-Source" and "Free Software" interchangeably, I do not consider the two equivalent. "Open-Source" means (when I use it) that the source code is readily available and that you may access it and modify it for your own use. "Free Software" means that the software is freely available to you, and you are free to do with it as you please (even sell it, if you like). While "Free Software" implies "Open-Source", "Open-Source" does not necessarily imply "Free". For a more thorough discussion of the topic, see Stallman's article, "Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source"" at the GNU Project.