this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
26 points (100.0% liked)
technology
23328 readers
367 users here now
On the road to fully automated luxury gay space communism.
Spreading Linux propaganda since 2020
- Ways to run Microsoft/Adobe and more on Linux
- The Ultimate FOSS Guide For Android
- Great libre software on Windows
- Hey you, the lib still using Chrome. Read this post!
Rules:
- 1. Obviously abide by the sitewide code of conduct. Bigotry will be met with an immediate ban
- 2. This community is about technology. Offtopic is permitted as long as it is kept in the comment sections
- 3. Although this is not /c/libre, FOSS related posting is tolerated, and even welcome in the case of effort posts
- 4. We believe technology should be liberating. As such, avoid promoting proprietary and/or bourgeois technology
- 5. Explanatory posts to correct the potential mistakes a comrade made in a post of their own are allowed, as long as they remain respectful
- 6. No crypto (Bitcoin, NFT, etc.) speculation, unless it is purely informative and not too cringe
- 7. Absolutely no tech bro shit. If you have a good opinion of Silicon Valley billionaires please manifest yourself so we can ban you.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Free and open source software
I don’t understand
Closed software, proprietary software: You buy a loaf of bread from a business. You're not allowed to figure out the recipe, you're not allowed to share it with friends and family, and the bakery has the right to take it away from you if they don't like the way you're eating it. Examples: Windows, MacOS, Adobe's various software.
Freeware: You get a free loaf of bread from a business. You're still not allowed to figure out the recipe or to eat it in a way that the bakery doesn't like. Depending on the license you might be able to share that bread with friends and family, but it might instead limit you to telling them where they can get their own free loaf of bread. Examples: First-party apps on phones, such as Google's own Android apps or Apple's own IOS apps.
Free software: You get the loaf of bread and the recipe for free. You can share either as much as you want with anyone. You're free to tweak the recipe and share the tweaked recipe with others. The only thing you can't do is distribute bread made with your tweaked recipe without also providing that tweaked recipe for free. Sometimes developers use the word "libre" instead of "free" because in many romance languages it has the right connotation that's missing from the english "free". Think "free speech", not "free beer". Examples: Firefox, VLC.
"Open source" is a term that's more nebulous. Depending on the specific software license it may or may not work like the "Free Software" above. It's honestly a rather meaningless term these days.
The recipe above is the program's "source code" - the human-readable programming that can be turned into a working program for a computer to run. Free software has a side benefit of allowing programmers to check for deliberately-planted security flaws. Such a check (often called a "security audit") can take a long time and requires trusting the people doing the audit. But at least it's theoretically possible to check for such flaws in free software. In closed proprietary software, checking for such deliberately planted flaws is far more difficult.
I get what open source is but I need examples, like do I need to replace my OS?
If you just want to run ad-free and reasonably-privacy-friendly apps on your android phone, no. If you stick to apps you can find on F-Droid when possible, and use only apps from the Google play store if there's no alternative, you should be OK.
If you have more specific security/privacy concerns then things get more complex.
Free as in freedom not as in beer. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software