The 19Th INTERNATIONAL DAAAM SYMPOSIUM

The 19th INTERNATIONAL DAAAM SYMPOSIUM "Intelligent Manufacturing & Automation: Focus on Next Generation of Intelligent Systems and Solutions" 22-25th October 2008

IS OPEN SOURCE REALLY FREE OF CHARGE?

VUJIČIĆ TOMIĆ, B.; POGARČIĆ, I. & NIŽIĆ, B.

Abstract: Paper is considering a problem of open software of time developing the software and after completing it, give system. Since the open software is regularly identified with free freedom to others - not just to use it free of charge, but also all software, problem was primarily analyzed from the financial other freedoms. (Cusumano, 2005) Sometimes, to create quality aspect respectively is open software truly free of charge. Within software, time horizon is few months, in some cases even years. frames of global e-Business open software can significantly At first glance, that kind of behaviour is at least unusual. influence on business costs. Even though open software’s The main reason why this is strange to us is that we live in application in a concrete situation need not necessarily lower a capitalist society where most of the things/services are viewed business costs it would be recommendable to examine through the prism of economic gain and loss. However, the possibilities of its usage. The authors also express their opinion system of values in OS community is somehow different, which regarding indicated problem from the aspects of their own leads to strengthening of the OS community and quality of the business. OS software which is for the end user completely free of Key words: Open Source, Freeware, GNU, Licence, Public charge. After studying different texts about the question of this Software chapter, one can see that the answer to that question has two levels: an individual development of OS software and an 1. INTRODUCTION organization which finances the development of OS software. It is very important to make the distinction between these two There are freeware and free software. In most cases these levels, because each one has different reasons for the two categories overlap, but not always. Freeware is a kind of development of OS software. software which can be used free of charge. Free software is software which offers complete freedom in its usage. Many 2.1. An individual starts with the development developers believe in releasing their software freely, but have Scenario: There are people with great software hesitated to do so because they're concerned about losing development skill. They decide for whatever reason to create control over their software. Licensing issues are complicated, quality and useful software. They put it under the OS license. and both the facts and fallacies you hear word-of-mouth can Why? They did it for the personal satisfaction. Components of add to the confusion. (St. Laurent, 2004): that satisfaction could be challenge, enjoying in programming, The most famous licence of free software is GNU GPL creation of something which will be their legacy, pleasure (General Public Licence) which declares that free software because they are participating is something very significant, meets the following conditions: potential indirect economic benefit: quality publicity on the job  Freedom to execute a program, regardless of its purpose. market. If the result of that work is also useful to others, that  Freedom to study how a program works and how to make can be the initial spark of very positive energy. With adjustments to it to satisfy our needs. Access to source code participation of others their work achieves higher level of is necessary condition for this freedom. quality. They give away something which they would do  Freedom to distribute program copies so we can help others anyway, so they do not lose anything. On the contrary, with it. contribution of others creates something more valuable also for  Freedom to improve program and to give improved the original author. Because all of us need some income in our program to public, which means allowing that all life to live normally, we can make assumption that people community benefits from it. Access to the source code is involved in OS activity have some sort of income in their life. necessary condition for this freedom. For example, they have a job and in spare time they enjoy According to those criteria, software which is freeware, but programming. In their spare time people do what they love. If has no free access to the source code isn't free software. somebody likes programming, spending time like that is not in However, all free software is at the same time also free of any way different from spending time doing some hobby. charge. When we know that, the answer to the subject of this paper is obvious. However, a fact that exists OS 2.2. Big company is financing the development of OS software and that it is completely free of charge, opens a Scenario: Big organization decides to give source code of few very interesting questions (Goldman&Gabriel, 2005) its software under the GNU LGPL licence. Why? The reason is Namely, these are: much more different than for individuals, because in the case of  Why is someone ready to spend so much time needed to companies there is economic motive which is easy to develop quality software and after that give away all rights comprehend: according to that life of a company depends of to economic benefits of that work? their profit. (Goldman&Gabriel, 2005). Economic motives  Is the development of OS community a threat to the could be very positive publicity, creation of the market for software industry? some other non free products which are the great addition to OS software and creation of the market for giving support which  How can we make profit on OS software? becomes the source of income (www.opensource.org).  How reliable is OS software? An example of the corporation like that is Sun

Microsystems (www.sun.org). Their product OpenOffice.org is 2. WHY WOULD SOMEBODY DEVELOP OS? under LGPL licence. In addition to OpenOffice, they have also Java whose source code is available, but it is under the Sun Many people wonder why somebody is ready to spend a lot licence. Partially, they give for free also Solaris operating system. Professionally - The author and his company are not Authors of this paper deeply respect that kind of approach threatened by the OS projects. At the contrary, the company can to the market because the end user benefits from that. This even profit from OS by reducing its costs. There is no threat paper has been done with the OpenOffice.org Writer (in its since the company develops custom made software adjusted to first version). special needs of the particular client. Because of the nature of company’s software, OS shows no interest in it. 3. IS OS SOFTWARE THREAT TO THE Personally - The author desired to create two programs COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE INDUSTRY? /games using C# programming language: Sapere - dictionary and program for studying foreign words Abadel – game This question rises after strengthening of OS community. Othello/Reversi. The answer is: partially yes. But not so much that it can cause When they will be finished, the following choices are serious damage to it. Furthermore, in some areas it can even optional: make it stronger. The beauty is that the end user can just benefit Commercial version - try to sell it to someone: it is too from the strong OS community. Commercial software industry much hassle for what it offers. Earning is too low and only is too strong so OS community cannot make some serious harm enormous amounts of money could be a proper motive. Even if to it. But, in some cases, OS community has influence on the that would be commercial, because of the high rate of piracy, commercial software industry. no matter of used protection, people who would like to use it It is difficult to say in which ways exactly the development without paying would find the way. Commercial version would of OS community makes influence on software industry, and help to reduce the program usage. that is because of its dynamics, but it seems that it is making it Freeware version - free of charge, but closed source code. better and it is giving a motive to the commercial companies to Not bad, but there is a better option. make an extra effort in the improvement of their products. This OS version - the best option. That significantly improves is important because only with extra features their product can the chances for further improvements of programs. In the case motivate customers to buy it and not to use completely free OS the final products would have real quality there is not any alternative. reason why the program would be in some Linux distributions. By using OS software, companies can reduce their costs. This would initiate a great publicity, which could give more This statement is valid also for the software companies - e.g. benefit than harm on the job market (e.g. one can write in CV companies which make custom made software for other that programs can be downloaded from the Internet and to companies. In the OS community there is not big interest for mention in which Linux distributions programs are). This is the the development of that kind of software. This means, reason why the programs are being developed in C# in a way development of OS is a threat just to the part of software that they are compatible with Mono and .net 1.1 platforms. By industry which produces popular software. Commercial working like that we will have software which has better companies which produce that kind of software must make an chance to spread to both platforms: Linux and Windows. extra effort, but everybody else has better position in the We give advantage to the OS community. We also respect development of custom made software. freeware versions if they have high quality. No matter why is Studying different sources, the author of this paper has someone active within the OS community, this is one very found two ideas related to OS: positive thing which brings benefits to many people.  Hardware manufactures can give OS drivers and with that give an opportunity to the market to improve it further on. 6. INSTEAD OF CONCLUSION: NEW PARADIGM  the theory "what is valuable, will be paid" which says that if some software product has the value to the user, even if it is Speaking of profit, OS approach put emphasis on service free of charge, the user will make donation for that and not on the products. OS is response to monopoly. There is software. This is very questionable theory because it seems whole new paradigm: not just Windows or Linux platform, but too idealistic. Internet platform. (E.g. Google is using 100 000 Linux servers), and everybody is using Google, which indirectly means that we 4. HOW RELIABLE IS OS SOFTWARE? are also using the service of Linux platform. Amazon is also using OS.

Internet platform - Web (Internet) has its foundation in OS: The answer to that question depends primarily on the level TCP/IP protocol, BIND, DNS, sendmail, etc., Apache Server of the development and the interest of OS community for some and Linux as servers. Within the new paradigm, real money lies tool. In case that there is great interest, the answer is definitely in service which is based on the free products and not any more yes. Reasons for that are: in products themselves. For example: BIND is the protocol for  great number of people are testing that kind of DNS. Author of BIND does not make money from it, but software and together they participate in the Domain Name Services have. correction of found errors

 because of the openness of source code, it is great 10. REFERENCES AND RECOMMENDED LINKS probability that certain security threats will be discovered and immediately resolved Cusumano, M. at al. (2005): Perspectives on Free and Open  Great number of people participates in further Source Software (Hardcover), the MIT Press improvements through suggestions, documentation, Goldman, R.; Gabriel, R.P. (2005): Innovation Happens translation, addition of new functions etc. Elsewhere: Open Source as Business Strategy, Morgan If there is enough interest, sometimes it is just a question of Kaufmann, 2005 time when will some tools become more quality and stableness St. Laurent, A.M. (2004): Understanding Open Source and than their commercial alternatives. Of course, if some software Free Software Licensing, O'Reilly Media, Inc. is the result of work of just one person, and OS community has www.fsf.org: The GNU Project Free Software Foundation (Last no interest in that product, it is very possible that software isn't access 2008-06-20) of high quality and stability. www.opensource.org: Open Source Initiative OSI–Welcome (Last access 2008-06-20) 5. USE CASE: AUTHORS OPINION OF OS www.linux.org: The Linux Home Page (Last acces 2008-06-05) DAAAM AUTHOR QUESTIONNAIRE

PAPER DATA

Name and email address of corresponding author: [email protected] , [email protected] This paper will be presented (oral presentation / poster): oral This paper will be NOT presented at Symposium please send the Proceedings to following address: Please send PDF Off prints of Paper to following e-mail address: [email protected] , [email protected]

AUTHORS DATA

1. 2. First / Middle / Family Name: Brankica , Vujičić-Tomić 3. Titles: graduate in economics, M.B.A. 4. Position / Since: head off accounting office 5. Institution: HT Hrvatski telekom 6. Place and Date of Birth : 1962-01-31 7. Nationality / Citizenship: Croatian/Croatia 8. Field of interests (key words): accounting, finance, costs, auditing 9. Hobbies: Skiing, music 10. E-mail address: [email protected] 11. Site: 12. Phone & Fax #: +385 98 443 131 & +385 51 213 555 13. Postal address: Cikovici, Resetari 24, 51 215 Kastav 14. I am interested in the following DAAAM activities to be active member of one of our international committees, and reviewer of papers and manuscripts

15. First / Middle / Family Name: Ivan, Pogarčić 16. Titles: MSc 17. Position / Since: leader of education 18. Institution: Polytechnic of Rijeka 19. Place and Date of Birth : 1953-07-18 20. Nationality / Citizenship: Croatian/Croatia 21. Field of interests (key words): Database, developement of information system, e-learning 22. Hobbies: Skiing, music 23. E-mail address: [email protected] 24. Site: www.veleri.hr/pogarcic 25. Phone & Fax #: +385 98 456 065 & +385 51 673 529 26. Postal address: Marinici Mucici 46 a, 51216 Viskovo 27. I am interested in the following DAAAM activities to be active member of one of our international committees, and reviewer of papers and manuscripts

28. First / Middle / Family Name: Berislav, Nižić 29. Titles: 30. Position / Since: student – software developer 31. Institution: Polytechnic of Rijeka 32. Place and Date of Birth : Rijeka, 1978-10-18 33. Nationality / Citizenship: Croatian/Croatia 34. Field of interests (key words): Database, Programming 35. Hobbies: Othello 36. E-mail address: [email protected] 37. Site: 38. Phone & Fax #: +385 91 7311925 39. Postal address: Drazina 4, 51262 Kraljevica 40. I am interested in the following DAAAM activities to be active member of one of our international committees, and reviewer of papers and manuscripts