DEV Community: COEP's Free Software Users Group

Licenses

COEP's Free Software Users Group — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 16:48:52 +0000

What comes first to your mind when you encounter the word License?
Permissions, exactly!
It is a official paper that shows if you’re allowed to do or have something.

What is a “Software” License?
A software license is a legally binding agreement made between the owner or developer of a software program and the user, outlining how they can use and distribute the product. Software licensing terms and conditions usually include fair use of the software, the limitations of liability, warranties, and disclaimers.

What all things a Software License addresses?
Typically, the software license addresses things like:

If the user can view the underlying source code
If the user can copy, alter, or redistribute the program
Where the program can be installed and how frequently

How does this apply to Open Source?
Open Source License serves as a legal agreement between open
source author and user. The author makes OSS available for free,
but with certain requirements, the user must follow. An open-source
license outlines the responsibilities taken on by those who use your
Software. All licenses allow the use, modification, and sharing of software complying with the definition of Open Source.

Popular Licenses :
The following OSI-approved licenses are popular, widely used, or have strong communities:

Apache License 2.0
BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" license
BSD 2-Clause "Simplified" or "FreeBSD" license
GNU General Public License (GPL)
GNU Library or "Lesser" General Public License (LGPL)
MIT license
Mozilla Public License 2.0
Common Development and Distribution License
Eclipse Public License version 2.0

What makes Software Open Source?
Only if it uses one of the Approved Licenses, and releases appropriate software.

What is a "permissive" Open Source license?
A "permissive" license is simply a non-copyleft open source license — one that guarantees the freedoms to use, modify, and redistribute, but that permits proprietary derivative works.

Is some License an Open Source license, even if it is not listed on the official site?
In general, no. All licenses run through an approval process to provide an accepted standard on which licenses are Open Source, and the approved ones are listed.

Which Open Source license should you choose to release your software under?
A License would depend on the community you’re contributing to or the permissions you want to grant to developers for future use. When you contribute to an existing project, you should usually release your modified versions under the same license as the original work. Using a different license often makes cooperation with the maintainer very difficult. If the version you've created is considerably more useful than the original, then it's worth copylefting your work.

References :

Official Licenses
Licenses by name

~ Tanmay Patil

Open Source

COEP's Free Software Users Group — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 16:32:49 +0000

What is Open Source?
Open source is a term that originally referred to open source software (OSS). Open source software is code that is designed to be publicly accessible—anyone can see, modify, and distribute the code as they see fit.

Doesn't "open source" just mean something is free of charge?

No. This is a common misconception about what "open source" implies, and the concept's implications are not only economic.

Open source software programmers can charge money for the open source software they create or to which they contribute. But in some cases, because an open source license might require them to release their source code when they sell software to others, some programmers find that charging users money for software services and support (rather than for the software itself) is more lucrative. This way, their software remains free of charge, and they make money helping others install, use, and troubleshoot it.

Open source software	Proprietary software
It offers more flexibility to users.	It is less flexible and often comes with restrictions on users.
Open source is developed and maintained by a community.	It is developed and maintained by the group who published it.
Larger community support base as the source code remains open to view and edit	Smaller Support base due to only limited people work on any piece of software while the source code remains a mystery to the outside world.
Open for collaboration by anyone in the world	Not open for collaboration by anyone in the world

Open-source development is something that every dev must try, especially beginners. It can help you find your footing in the infinite world of programming, and you also learn a ton of things. And you're pretty much sure to make some amazing friends who will support you in your endeavors. Open source licenses affect the way people can use, study, modify, and distribute software. In general, open source licenses grant computer users permission to use open source software for any purpose they wish.

List of few opensource software: Mozilla Firefox, Jitisi meet, LibreOffice, Gimp, Audacity, Wordpress, VLC Media Player

References:

~ Rohit Shidid

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

COEP's Free Software Users Group — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 13:51:53 +0000

How I got to know about EFF?
Well, one of my friends told me about the ‘HTTPS Everywhere browser extension long ago when I asked him what that lock on the URL bar stood for. I was curious to know what it signifies when red or clean locked. Having installed it, I got suggestions for the ‘Privacy Badger’ extension, since both these extensions are tools by the EFF. I clicked on it and went on to read. This search soon landed me on the Electronic Frontier Foundation page!

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development. EFF's mission is to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world.

Mission : To ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world.

Activities :

Patent Bursting Project

This initiative by EFF challenges patents that the organization claims are illegitimate and suppress innovation or limits online expression.

Email privacy act

The work of the foundation is currently focused on the following dimensions:
free speech : defending the Internet and its open architecture as a platform for free speech
fair use and intellectual property rights : defending the balance between fair use and intellectual property legislation (copyright, trademark, etc.), and ensure that the Internet and digital technologies continue to empower users as consumers, creators, innovators, scholars, and citizens;
Innovation : protecting innovators and promoting creativity and competition;
Privacy : promoting and defending the privacy rights of individuals in the digital environment, and supporting thde development of privacy-enhancing technologies;
international activities : defending privacy, freedom of expression, digital consumer rights, and innovation at a global level, through capacity building activities, campaigns against legislative proposals and Internet treaties and conventions that threaten to undermine human rights, and advocacy to convince companies and governments to uphold human rights standards and the rule of law; and
Transparency : demanding for and promoting transparency at a governmental level.

Some of the noticeable works by EFF can be found here.

~ Akshay Khoje

Digital Rights Management

COEP's Free Software Users Group — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 13:32:16 +0000

DRM
Does it really affect me ?! 🤔

What if you buy a new e-book but can't read it on the reading software of your choice - DRM.

Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies tend to have control over what you can and cannot do with the software and hardware of your belongings. Corporations propose arguments that these DRMs avoid copyright infringement and keep consumers away from viruses. However in reality, these cut down the market competition they face and manipulate consumers to act as per the "T&C".

DRM has proliferated thanks to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA), which sought to outlaw any attempt to bypass DRM.

Let's have a look at a real life example of this.

Printers - Earlier DRM over ink cartridges , now paper as well !!!

A printer has two input requirements : ink and paper. Printers use ink cartridges, which need to be replaced later. Many manufacturers control the cartridges that can be used for their printers, so the consumers have to by default use the cartridges manufactured by the same company. They do so by adding chips to the cartridges, printers can sense these chips containing a key that needs to be matched with that of the printer. As only the company has this key, cartridges manufactured by other companies can't be used. This is how they apply DRM over ink.

This strategy shatters when it faces a chain supply problem when manufacturers can't get chips.

Now what remains is the paper. But how can DRM be put on paper?

Label printers are thermal printers, having printheads consisting of tiny electrical elements that heat special, thermo-reactive paper that turns black when heated. 'Dymo' is one of the manufacturing companies that produce them. Dymo has put RFID readers in its label printers and preventing the printer owners from putting third-party labels through their printers.

The label rolls i.e., the input paper, come with a booby-trap, an RFID-equipped microcontroller that authenticates the company's labels with the printers manufactured by them. Due to this, you cannot use labels that are not of the same manufacturer. Now the consumers are left with no option than buying the labels of Dymo itself. The models that feature this DRM are Dymo 550 and the 5XL.

Enough of problems, tell the solution-

Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act specifies: those who want to outmaneuver such DRMs to the possibility of huge fines, it's either live with it, or junk the printer and buy its substitute. Even with the cost of throwing away your Dymo label printer and replacing it with an alternative, you still save a lot in the long run, by buying labels of your choice !! Simple :)

References:

EFF - DRM
ZDNET - Dymo causes a stir by adding DRM to printer paper

~ Ved Bilaskar

Copyright vs. Copyleft

COEP's Free Software Users Group — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 13:08:32 +0000

Being a creator, duplication or stealing of work is continually a risk, isn’t it ? ☠️

Such hazards can simply be avoided utilising numerous extraordinary protections or Intellectual Property Rights available!

To list a few Rights:

Patents
Domain names
Industrial design
Confidential information
Inventions
Moral rights
Database rights
Works of authorship
Service marks
Logos
Trademarks
Design rights
Business or trade names
Commercial secrets

As an instance, Engineers issue patents for their inventions, Bloggers issue DMCA Takedown notices, developers use appropriate software program licenses, users use Copyright or Copyleft licences and BLAH-BLAH-BLAH!

One of the most broadly used approach is Copyright.

Copyright enables the creator to have a legal right to dictate whether or not his authentic work may be duplicated. The creator additionally has the rights to take legal moves if his work is discovered copied or altered through others without the creator’s permission. However, once you’ve protected your work with copyright, you can’t disclaim that right totally or add it to the public domain. Unauthorised utilisation of original work that is protected by Copyright is termed as Copyright Infringement. Restricting users from unauthorised copying, altering, or selling of the creator’s unique work is the primary motive behind Copyright.

Types of Copyright:

Public Performing Right
Public Performance License
Reproduction Right
Mechanical License
Synchronisation License

On the other hand, Copyleft is just the reverse of Copyright.

It promotes the technique of making any work reusable and modifiable without restrictions. Copyleft supports the intension of the Open-source movement, that emphasises the idea of collaboration. However, the most remarkable thing about copyleft licenses is that they require users to distribute by-product works beneath the same license that gives them the identical rights as the actual work. For instance, assume a developer releases a source code having a copyleft license. Being a user, you have the rights to download, alter and share the code to whomsoever you need according to your desire, but you’d also have to permit anyone else to download, alter and share the code to whomsoever they want. This is termed as “share-alike” Clause. Therefore, Copyleft guarantees that not only the original work is free, but that all modifications must also be made free for different users.

Types of Copyleft:

GNU GPL (for software)
Creative Commons SA (Share Alike) licenses (for works of art).
Mozilla Public License 2.0
Eclipse Public License 1.0
Microsoft Reciprocal License

It’s usual to wonder how Copyleft is far distinct from Copyright, but to all intents and purposes, Copyleft utilises Copyright to make sure that the authentic works stays free. Copyright regulation enthrones the rights to the owner of the work in order to control all reproduction, modification, and use of the copyrighted material, whereas Copyleft utilises this regulation to impose freedom of use and provide upcoming users to alter, distribute, and use the work as per their wish.

While Copyright limits freedom, Copyleft imposes freedom on all subsequent works! 🛡️

~ Pallavi Gaikwad

Free Softwares

COEP's Free Software Users Group — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 12:30:39 +0000

“Free software” or Libre Software means software that respects users' freedom and community. Roughly, it means that the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software and any adapted versions.

The term ‘Free Software’ was first coined by Richard Stallman, the founder of the FSF. He also introduced the concept of copyleft.

Computer programs are deemed "free" if they give end-users (not just the developers) ultimate control over the software and, subsequently, over their devices.

Definition of Free Software:

A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential freedoms:

Freedom 0 : The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose .
Freedom 1 : The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Freedom 2 : The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others.
Freedom 3 : The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others. By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

What qualifies as Free Software?
Licenses, a one-word answer! Licenses are crucial to qualify software as Free/Libre or Non-free. They decide the nature by which a piece of code can or cannot be treated.

Some commonly used free softwares are :

The Linux kernel
Git
Apache Web Server
VLC media player
Mozilla Firefox

A detailed explanation on Free Software and its importance by Richard Stallman in one of his TEDx Talks :

Difference between Free Softwares and Freeware

Freeware is any software that is distributed for use at a price of zero. However, freeware may not be "free software".

Free Software	FreeWare
Free software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction.	Freeware refers to software that anyone can download from the Internet and use for free.
Coined by Richard Stallman in 1983, to satisfy the need for and to give the benefit of “software freedom” to computer users.	Coined by Andrew Fluegelman in 1982, when he wanted to sell a communications program named PC-Talk.
These softwares use copyleft licenses like GNU General Public License.	It uses copyright licenses.
All the features are free.	All the features are free.
Programs can be distributed free of cost.	Freeware programs can be distributed free of cost.
Mozilla Firefox, GCC, Brave, Signal, LibreOffice, Tor Browser	Adobe PDF, Google Talk, Yahoo messenger, Google Chrome

Questionnaire:

What category of software does Telegram fit in?
What is the difference between chromium and chrome?

General software directories:

Alternative To - lists software alternatives to proprietary softwares
Privacy tools - lists privacy-enhancing tools
Open Hub - lists OSS and provides online community platform
FOSS tools - FSF’s Directory of FOSS tools

Additional readings:

Difference between Open Source Software and Free Software
Philosophy of the Free Software Foundation
Clarify some misconceptions on FLOSS, FOSS, Open Source Software and Free Software

~ Akshay Khoje

GNU

COEP's Free Software Users Group — Sun, 30 Oct 2022 21:02:46 +0000

Ever wondered why can’t we see the source code of Windows or MAC OS?
Why do we pay for the operating system when buying a laptop or PC?
Why we can install Linux OS freely but need to pay for Windows?
Windows, MAC, Unix: You use them daily but don’t know how they actually work. Because these are closed-source programs that are copyrighted and not available for further research or use. You may have also heard of or used the UNIX OS which is a closed source.
There was a need for an open-source OS, a freeware whose code is freely available and can be modified and distributed. Free doesn’t necessarily mean free of cost, here free stands for free use. Free Software
Hence, GNU!

But what exactly is GNU?

The GNU Project
GNU Project was announced by Richard Stallman in 1983. The aim was to develop and publish software collaboratively and allow users to use them freely, copy and distribute.
The GNU Manifesto:

Freedom to run a program for any purpose
Freedom to study the mechanics of the program and modify it
Freedom to redistribute copies
Freedom to improve and change modified versions for public use

To implement this manifesto, even the operating system needed to be free software.
That’s why GNU/Linux was developed!

The GNU Operating System
GNU stands for GNU’s Not Unix! Meaning it is UNIX-like but is free software and does not contain UNIX-like code. GNU is licensed by GNU General Public License (GNU GPL).

GNU is a collection of free softwares which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems.
Most of the time GNU is also referred to as GNU/Linux or simply Linux, as it uses a UNIX-like kernel Linux.

Tux: The logo of Linux
Why does GNU come with Linux?
GNU is just the source code or the software developed under the GPL. But it cannot be used as it is. It requires an OS to interpret the computer. So, it is combined with the Unix-like Open Source Kernel, Linux. These together are popularly known as GNU/Linux or Linux or GNU.

GNU not only developed an operating system, but it also grew a worldwide open-source community! And by reading and accepting the ideology, you are a part too :).

Tease your brain more. Go from a bit to the byte…

Why do we need open-source code? Can’t we just work with licensed versions?

Read: Blog on Open Source, Open Source Official Website
I am too comfortable with Windows, so why Linux?

Read: Why Linux is Better than Windows?

~ Vaishnavi Pabalkar