Entry #6: On Open Source

 What is F(L)OSS? 

[Source: Pixabay]

As a unique topic for my blog, I would like to discuss something that I've been spending a lot of time thinking about. With the rise of major tech platforms, as well as potentially invasive applications that collect mass swaths of data (with complaints aplenty), many netizens have been suggesting the use of alternative platforms and applications. Whether this is due to some negligible, individualist self-protest, a fight for privacy and data protection, or pure curiosity is up for debate. The rise in such influence has, however, made for some unique discussions to return with greater popularity. One such discussion is the importance of what is known as Free (Libre) Open Source Software, or F(L)OSS. This isn't to say that no one uses Linux or *BSD, the Firefox web browser, or any other easily accessible piece of free software, but that it's importance seems to be coming back as many turn to question whether it was even a good choice for us to go down the path starting from MySpace and AOL to the dark pits of Reddit, Twitter, and Meta's Facebook/WhatsApp, rather than getting down to XMPP, IRC, and close-knit online forums.

So what gives? What is the purpose and concern for whether someone uses WhatsApp to contact their family versus some obscure protocol that their own family can't be bothered to set up?

As Richard Stallman (all controversy aside) has said in the past:

"A change in executives or companies is not important. What we need to change is this system.

That's what the free software movement is all about. “Free” refers to freedom: we write and publish software that users are free to share and modify. We do this systematically, for freedom's sake; some of us paid, many as volunteers. We already have complete free operating systems, including GNU/Linux. Our aim is to deliver a complete range of useful free software, so that no computer user will be tempted to cede her freedom to get software."

It becomes apparent that the motives for this type of software is different from what we would normally expect.

With so much to be brough to the table, and as a user of various Linux distributions and an advocate for the use of any and all available F(L)OSS, I welcome this new wave of arguments against tech monopoly orthodoxy.

Now that the philosophy behind the tradition has revealed itself, allow me to provide a working definition of this type of software.

Free software is the idea that you are free to use, modify, and share the software itself, while open source implies that the source code is available. There's a bit of overlap here. For those of us who believe that we should have the freedom to check the code that we run on our personal devices, we are susing the proper definition of free for this context; there are cases where you do need to make a purchase, yet this is not the norm. If that doesn't make perfect sense, it's understandable. More information is available in a format that explains it better than I could on the gnu website.

In summation, this is an ongoing series of projects and definitions that I believe anyone interested in tech should play a role in participating in. It's a community that benefits us all in many aspects of our life, without even realizing it. You don't need to switch your OS, nor do you need to change your lifestyle to completely get rid of Facebook and Instagram. Bringing awareness to the fact that there are millions of (many times) unpaid volunteers making a difference where it matters is good enough.

Peace.

[Source: Yuri Catalano]