Computer folks often require an exactness that can prove
frustrating to others. This exactness comes to a head when discussing
free software.
Linux, as well as some other operating systems and
a vast array of applications, are built on the idea that you--or
anyone--can access the internal structure of the software, the program
source code. There are no secrets; all is available. You can modify the
software, run the software, and share the software with others. The
developers of these programs grant you these rights by license. Software
available under such licenses goes under the name of free or open-source
software.
Software developers and users who feel passionate about
their software and their freedoms debate endlessly which licenses are
better than others. For most users, though, the licenses at
opensource.org all offer sufficient rights, and usually come with
software available at no cost.
Problems arise, though, when you
try to put together a complete system, especially a desktop system,
based only on free and open-source software. The problems come,
especially in the United States, from software patents, and an
increasingly draconian regime of laws designed to prevent reverse
engineering. Reverse engineering aids the creation of software that can
work with existing, and usually commercial, software packages. These
patents and laws control access to important software
components.
Amid all the passionate feelings about right and
wrong, free and not free, Linux vendor Linspire recently turned the
debate over free software on its head with the release of Freespire, a no-cost
version of the company's much-praised Linspire Linux distribution. Based
on Debian GNU/Linux,
Freespire has garnered praise due to its ease of use, installation, and
software management.
But Linspire did something more than release
a no-cost version of its product. Freespire includes a raft of
proprietary software that Linspire has included at no cost to you. You
can read the list of proprietary components in Freespire here.
These
components range from software to play Windows Media (WMV) and Quicktime
7 files to a Macromedia Flash Plug-In, as well as NVIDIA and ATI
graphics drivers and wireless networking and modem
drivers.
Normally, when someone offers a gift like this to the
community, you say thank you. In the Linux community, though, Linspire's
move created controversy. Freespire's software, it turns out, is free of
charge, but the program source codes, at least for the proprietary
components, are not accessible to be modified.
Many in the Linux
community feel that putting these components into a Linux distribution
not only encourages vendors not to open up their wares, but also
eliminates the benefits of freedom for software. A world without freedom
in software puts users at the mercy of just a few vendors and makes
users lose control over their information systems, be they home
computers or large business data centers. When your organization becomes
dependent on just one vendor, you are at the mercy of that vendor.
Software freedom means that even if a vendor no longer supports a
product, you have the chance to get support elsewhere, since the source
code is freely available.
Linspire offers a version of Freespire,
the Freespire OSS Edition, without any of these proprietary components.
But Linux users clearly want this extra, proprietary, software,
especially for playing Flash and MP3 content. Users want this software
so much that projects have sprung up devoted just to meeting these
goals. Easybuntu,
for example, exists to add support for proprietary formats such as
MP3-encoded music to the popular Ubuntu distribution.
In
another, far less controversial front in the battle over software
freedom, Intel has opened up a driver for the Intel 965 Express chip
set. You can find the driver software here. The driver
components are available under the MIT or GPL licenses. --Eric
Foster-Johnson
