Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for Everyone and Everything, presented at virtual Africa Digital Skills Conference 2020

1. CC-BY-SA 4.0
Enock Seth Nyamador
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for
Everyone & Everything
A global playing and working field for all
Open Source Evangelist / FOSS Advocate
Linux Accra Users Group
open.enockseth.co/foss_adsc.pdf

2. Introduction

3. 3/66

4. Linux Accra Users Group

5. 5/66
Linux Accra Users Group
●
Oldest and the largest Linux user
group in Ghana. -
https://linuxaccra.org/
●
Community made up of Open
source and Linux hobbyists,
professionals, enthusiasts,
developers as well as newbies
●
Meet: Saturday from 2pm to 5pm at
the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre
of Excellence in ICT - Advance
Information Technology Institute -
https://www.aiti-kace.com.gh/

6. Free and Open Source Software
What & Why?

7. 7/66
Early Software Days
●
In the 1950s and into the 1960s almost all software was produced by
computer science academics and corporate researchers working in
collaboration.
●
Source code was generally distributed with the software
●
Source code:
– if encrypt(password) == encryptedpassword, then login=1, end
●
Compiled code:
– 00100101110101001100110000111101100011000111000110101
➢
IBM “SHARE” user group
➢
Digital Equipment Computer Users' Society (DECUS)

8. 8/66
Open Letter to Hobbyists:
“Your sharing is Stealing”
Bill Gates, 1976

9. 9/66
Monopoly abuse
US justice department 1999:
“Microsoft is a monopolist and it
engaged in massive
anticompetitive practices that
harmed innovation and limited
consumer choice”

10. 10/66
"The most fundamental
way of helping other
people,
is to teach people
how to do things better
or how to better their
lives.
For people
who use computers,
this means sharing
the recipes
you use on your
computer,
in other words
the programs you run."

11. 11/66
1980's: Stallman defined “Free Software”
The freedom to:
✔
Use
✔
Study
✔
Distribute
✔
improve
the program

12. 12/66
Free Software Licenses
●
GNU GPL (General Public License)
– The 4 freedoms + copyleft (share alike)
– if binary offered, source code must be offered too
●
(on request, at low cost)
●
must stay GPL.
●
BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution)
– Attribution
– No copyleft requirements for distribution
– BSD code often in closed source software (MS, Mac, ...)
●
Apple Public Source License v2
The freedoms are guaranteed and enforced by licenses, e.g.

13. 13/66
1998: “Open Source” sounds better than “Free Software”?

14. 14/66
The software Freedoms
require access to the source code
→
“Open Source Software” (OSS)
Free Open Source Software (FOSS)
Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS)

15. 15/66
Software Categories
Anti-features are features that users don’t want, including:
➢ Copy-protection
➢ DRM = Digital Rights/Restrictions Management
➢ Data lock-in because of secret file formats
➢ Time-limit / Planned obsolescence
➢ Artificial limitations (e.g. limited RAM, HD and max 3 concurrent
programs in MS Windows Vista Home)
➢ Advertisements
➢ Tracking / Spyware

17. 17/66
1991 comp science student
Usenet posting to the newsgroup
"comp.os.minix.":
“I'm doing a (free) operating system
(just a hobby, won't be big and
professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT
clones.”
“Making Linux GPL'd
was definitely
the best thing I ever did.” ~ Linus Torvalds

18. 18/66
“Open Source ... it's just a superior way of
working together and generating code.”
“Like science, Open Source
allows people to build on a solid
base of previous knowledge,
without some silly hiding.”
“you can obviously never do as well in a closed
environment as you can with open scientific
methods.”
Linus Torvalds (2007-03-19). The Torvalds
Transcript: Why I 'Absolutely Love' GPL Version 2.

19. 19/66
Linux Distributions - Distros
distrowatch.com

20. 20/66

21. 21/66

22. 22/66
100% of World top 500 Supercomputers run Linux

23. Why use FLOSS?

24. 24/66
Africa can bridge the digital divide
●
by adopting open source
●
thus narrowing the effect of techno-colonialism"
“Need for technology
●
that is controlled by local communities
●
and not by foreign companies,
●
that is public property
●
and empowers people to be self-reliant”

25. 25/66
Why?
If you don't control the program, the program controls you!
Stay in Control!

26. 26/66
Would you accept tools with these rules?
You are forbidden to
●
modify this paper-clip
●
let other people use your hammer
●
use this hammer for removing nails
●
tell others what is written in this book

27. 27/66
So why do you accept such rules for Software
tools?
You are forbidden to
●
copy
●
reverse engineer
●
modify
●
use in certain circumstances
●
use in certain countries
●
….

28. Stay secure!
You can't trust software
if its source code is hidden
W
hy?

29. 29/66
From the European Parliament investigation into the Echelon
system (05/18/2001):
“If security is to be taken seriously, only those operating
systems should be used whose source code has been
published and checked, since only then can it be
determined
with certainty what happens to the data.”

30. 30/66
Cryptographer, computer security expert Bruce Schneier:
“Secrecy and security aren't the same, even though it may
seem that way. Only bad security relies on secrecy; good
security works even if all the details of it are public."
“If researchers don’t go public, things don’t get fixed.
Companies don't see it as a security problem; they see it as
a
PR problem.”
“Demand open source code for anything related to security”

31. Avoid:
data lock in
vendor lock in
Improve interoperability
W
hy?

32. Easy localization and customization
W
hy?

33. FLOSS tools are
most often cross-platform
W
hy?

34. Fun
Learning
W
hy?

35. “Linux is the benchmark of quality”
W
hy?
Coverity Report 2012

36. Modularity and lightweight solutions
allow to use small or old devices
W
hy?

37. Save energy!
Don't use personal operating systems
in multi-user environments
W
hy?

38. Reduce costs
W
hy?

40. Business opportunities
W
hy?

41. 41/66
"Seven open source business strategies for competitive
advantage”
John Koenig, IT Manager's Journal, 2004
“Companies continue to waste
their development dollars on
software functionality that is
otherwise free and available
through Open Source. They
persist in buying third-party
proprietary platforms or creating
their own proprietary
development platforms that
deliver marginal product
differentiation and limited value
to customers”

42. 42/66
“IBM’s $34 billion acquisition of open-source software developer Red Hat
(RHT) is “resetting” the cloud landscape, according to IBM (IBM) CEO Ginni
Rometty. Announced on Sunday, the move puts a 60% premium on Red Hat’s
Friday closing stock price.” - Yahoo Finnance

43. Better support
Support is often core
of the FOSS business model
+ fair competition of service providers
Easier troubleshooting
Because of transparency
W
hy?

44. FLOSS Examples

45. 45/66
Multimedia

46. 46/66
Web Browsers

47. 47/66
CMS

48. 48/66
Streaming, Recording
https://obsproject.com/

49. 49/66
Geo!!!

50. 50/66
Office, Typesetting, Present, Spreadsheet
https://www.libreoffice.org/

51. 51/66
LMS

52. 52/66
More….

53. 53/66
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
List_of_free_and_open-
source_software_packages

54. The infrastructure of the largest
companies
is built on top of FLOSS
and they are contributing to it
Google, Facebook, IBM, etc

55. 55/66
Reflections
In your institution...
●
how much money is spent yearly on software licensing?
●
how much effort (FTE) is put into license management?
●
how much unlicensed software is in use?
●
which proprietary software is still in use?
What is the FLOSS policy of your country,
institution, ...?

56. 56/66

57. Why are you not using (only) FLOSS?

58. 58/66
Perceived Barriers

59. 59/66
Perceived Barriers?
pre-installation of non-free software

60. 60/66
Perceived Barriers?
●
features?
●
quality?
●
sustainability?
●
Support?
●
requirement to participate in
●
the community?
Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt about

61. 61/66
Perceived Barriers?
➢ transition costs
➢ limited in house expertise
➢ plethora of choice?
anti-competitive behaviour:
➢ monopoly abuse
➢ secret formats
➢ secret protocols
➢ data and vendor lock-ins

62. 62/66
Perceived Barriers?
When people can't judge the quality of something, they look at the price,
because they expect price and quality to be correlated

63. 63/66
If you can’t beat them?
Microsoft acquired GitHub, a popular code-repository service used by many
developers and large companies, for $7.5 billion in stock. -
https://news.microsoft.com/announcement/microsoft-acquires-github/

64. 64/66
In Ghana?
Ghana Centre for Free &
Open Source Software
(GCFOSS) of the Ghana-
India Kofi Annan Centre of
Excellence in ICT ,
Bolgatanga as part of its
objective has been working
on localized Ghana
distribution of GNU/Linux
called Nyansapo Operating
System Solutions (NOSS)
based on Debian.
https://www.aiti-kace.com.gh/noss

65. 65/66
Credits
This presentation is inspired by:
Free & Open Source Software (2017 update) by Frederik Questier,
Professor; Founder at Open Patent Office -
https://www.slideshare.net/Frederik_Questier/foss-workshop-for-jimma-
university

66. Thank You! Merci! Danke!
open [at] enockseth [dot] co
This presentation was made with 100% FOSS:
open.enockseth.co/foss_adsc.pdf