Free software isn't freeware: why Linux and FOSS have a high

[Tony Austin]

You haven't quite covered all the bases regarding "free" and "gratis" and "non-gratis" and "open source" in my opinion.

Let's have a pseudo-hypothetical example. Apart from other gratis apps that I generously offer, suppose I have a non-gratis product "Fantastic App" -- gotta make a living somehow, so why not charge for at least one of my apps?

I've slaved away developing over many months, and keep coming out with minor enhancements (let's call these "releases') and less frequently major enhancements (let's call these "versions"). If you are willing to agree with the license and usage terms for FantasticApp and pay a license fee for any given version of it, then I let you have it together with all the source code to use however you like throughout your organization. All bug fixes and minor releases incur no extra fee, but there's an upgrade fee if you choose to upgrade to a newer major version.

Since you have all the source then surely FantasticApp is "open source" is it not? If I get run over by the proverbial Bourke Street bus (you probably don't know that we had double-decker buses in Bourke Street, Melbourne, some decades ago), there's no issue since you have all of the code.

But it's proprietary because the license states that you cannot share it with anybody outside your organization. Nobody forced you to purchase the license in the first place. You were free to try to get the same or a similar app elsewhere, presumably agreeing to license my app because it was the only one of its sort or the other were in some way unsuitable for your needs.

I would intend to demand payment from and/or sue any organization that obtained the source for FantasticApp without paying the appropriate licence fee, or released to other organizations who hadn't paid up.

So this is a piece of non-gratis "proprietary open source software" (or "POSS") is it not? Or maybe it would be more accurately labeled "proprietary restricted open source software" (or "PROSS"). What's wrong with all that? Surely we aren't expected to develop apps like FantasticApp for no financial return if we want to make a living from them from at least some of our efforts, that seems absurd to me.

Richard Stallman, eat your heart out over this one!

[mdsmedia]

Tony,

That's really not proprietary, because they have the source code to do with what they will. There are just more restrictions than under the GPL.

If the customer wanted to they could get someone else to update the program for them. You're effectively offering them a service, by updating the software.

Otherwise, when that Bourke Street bus hits you, what more right do they have to change the code than before the bus?

There is nothing in the GPL which says you can't sell the software. The only difference with your software is that there are restrictions on distribution, just one of the freedoms associated with the GPL.

How does your example relate to the "Free software isn't freeware" article?

[sillyxone]

it's not the software that's free; it's you

[dangerpossum]

Hello David,

I'm intrigued by your statement "Microsoft Office, prior to the latest Office 2007 release, used proprietary file formats for storing its data." I wasn't aware that they now support any significant open file formats! I know that the format used for MS Office 2007 files by default, i.e. the current DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, etc. formats, are all non-compliant variants of MS's failed MS OOXML "standard" (the very poorly considered format definition MS got through ISO by bribing and/or stacking national standards committees) - which is to say, they're proprietary.

It is true to say that MS have capitulated on their own MS OOXML, as they have found their own standard to be unworkable. Despite the superficial similarities between DOCX, etc. and their OOXML "standard", Microsoft have stated that they will support the truly open ODF (Open Document Format) standard (an uncontroversial ISO standard for several years now) which preceded MS's duplicitous OOXML efforts, because ODF is actually implementable (OpenOffice, KOffice, Abiword, SmartSuite, etc. already support it). OOXML - the 6000 page mess that it is - is not, at least not realistically, or with any consistency between implementations.

To my knowledge, MS Office 2007 does not YET natively support any significant open standards. It somewhat support some fairly trivial ones, i.e. ones that lose most of the structure of the documents in question, like HTML (which it does very very BADLY) and RTF (is RTF an open standard?) and plain text... Microsoft touts *third party* efforts to provide an ODF file translator, but due to its immaturity and obscurity (no doubt, that obscurity is fostered by Microsoft), it is not a real option for anyone, and only exists to allow MS to tick the "supports open standards" box on government tender documents.

[Bernie S]

An excellent article (and discussion). I very nearly missed seeing it, which would have been a pity.

This means a Microsoft Word 6.0 document, for example, can only be opened by a product which understands the Microsoft Word 6.0 file format – which is limited to only those who have paid to license this information or those who have attempted to reverse engineer it.

In the latter case, the product’s implementation of the relevant file format may be limited. A case in point is OpenOffice which, while offering a high degree of compatibility, does not – and can not – guarantee 100% compatibility in each and every single case.

Am I mistaken, or doesn't problem apply to subsequent versions of Microsoft Office, as well? I seem to recall hearing every now and then about people being unable to acces earlier versions of the MS Office documents with the current software.

[EvilPixieMan]

Am I mistaken, or doesn't problem apply to subsequent versions of Microsoft Office, as well? I seem to recall hearing every now and then about people being unable to acces earlier versions of the MS Office documents with the current software.

I believe there are some cases. An even more insidious case that I've come across when working on a large tender submission (consortium bid - reps from a number of companies, each carrying their own "corporate standard") was the use of "save as Word 6" function in later versions. The document was fine being used by team members with a few different versions of word (2000, 2002/XP, 2007), until a specific feature was used in Word 2007. Despite all the options being set to save in word 6, and disable features not compatible etc, Word2007 encountered a specific situation (in one case a long table where the table spanned many pages and one row spanned more than two pages) the document was rendered unreadable by any other versions of word (and the rest of the bid team could no longer work on the document).
With a tight deadline looming and a need to collaborate, and a large document already "poisoned" by Word 2007, we had little choice but to upgrade the rest of the machines. Since then I've seen the same thing a few times, we have a large body of documents on our main file server, and despite all the "compatibility mode" flags in the world being set, every now and then a document touched by Word 2K7 will be rendered unreadable by previous versions. It remains fine for Word 2007, but no amount of "save as..." to previous versions will bring it back. We have banned Word 2007 from our workplace, simply because we are not able to justify upgrading every desktop in the place, and using it renders documents unreadable to anyone without the latest 7 greatest.
Looking at OOo. Pity about the grammar checker.

[mdsmedia]

Am I mistaken, or doesn't problem apply to subsequent versions of Microsoft Office, as well? I seem to recall hearing every now and then about people being unable to acces earlier versions of the MS Office documents with the current software.

I believe there are some cases. An even more insidious case that I've come across when working on a large tender submission (consortium bid - reps from a number of companies, each carrying their own "corporate standard") was the use of "save as Word 6" function in later versions. The document was fine being used by team members with a few different versions of word (2000, 2002/XP, 2007), until a specific feature was used in Word 2007. Despite all the options being set to save in word 6, and disable features not compatible etc, Word2007 encountered a specific situation (in one case a long table where the table spanned many pages and one row spanned more than two pages) the document was rendered unreadable by any other versions of word (and the rest of the bid team could no longer work on the document).
With a tight deadline looming and a need to collaborate, and a large document already "poisoned" by Word 2007, we had little choice but to upgrade the rest of the machines. Since then I've seen the same thing a few times, we have a large body of documents on our main file server, and despite all the "compatibility mode" flags in the world being set, every now and then a document touched by Word 2K7 will be rendered unreadable by previous versions. It remains fine for Word 2007, but no amount of "save as..." to previous versions will bring it back. We have banned Word 2007 from our workplace, simply because we are not able to justify upgrading every desktop in the place, and using it renders documents unreadable to anyone without the latest 7 greatest.
Looking at OOo. Pity about the grammar checker.

Evil, I haven't had a problem with the OOo grammar checker, but then I haven't used it . I hate the grammar checker in Office, period. Well, I don't hate it, but it's a little too picky at times.

When I write a letter my grammar isn't so bad that I need it checked, generally. I don't have the grammar police looking over my shoulder, or that of the recipient.

That said, the grammar checker in Word is pretty good.