My notes on my brown bag talk about Free Software

free-software-notes.txt

Buying a product and the right to know about it
 * Pencil - lead
 * A pet Dog
 * Siopao
 * Painting
 * House
 * Book
 
Copyright
 * a legal right created by the law of a country that grants the creator of an original work exclusive rights for its use and distribution
 * a form of intellectual property, applicable to certain forms of creative work
 * did not exists before invention of the printing press. An elaborate system of censorship and control over scribes did not exist as scribes were scattered and worked on single manuscripts.
 * governments established controls over printers across Europe, requiring them to have official licences to trade and produce books.
 
 License
 * a permit from an authority to own or use something, do a particular thing, or carry on a trade (especially in alcoholic beverages).

Software License
 * A software license is a legal instrument (usually by way of contract law, with or without printed material) governing the use or redistribution of software.
 * United States copyright law all software is copyright protected, in source code as also object code form; The only exception is software in the public domain.
 
Free Software as defined by the FSF (Free Software Foundation)
 * Has the Four essential freedoms
  (0) The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose 
    - without being required to communicate about it with the developer or any other specific entity
	- unlike Skype which forces us to communicate with their Servers
  (1) to study and change the program in source code form
    - this includes adding plugins, or installing new "apps"
    - unlike Apple which controls what is allowed in "App Store". Installing "non-App Store" apps will void your warranty, aka Jailbreaking.
	- this is to allow the user to make sure that the software is doing what it should and what it shouldn't (like NSA Spying as described by Edward Snowden)
  (2) to redistribute exact copies
  (3) to distribute modified versions.
	- the modified version does not have to be a copyleft license. However, a license that requires modified versions to be nonfree does not qualify as a free license.
 * “Free software” does not mean “noncommercial”. Free Software can be sold for a price, usually "distribution fees". Free Software can be Commercial software.
  * For more info, https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
 
Copylefted software
 * is free software whose distribution terms ensure that all copies of all versions carry more or less the same distribution terms.
 * To copyleft a program, we first state that it is copyrighted; then we add distribution terms, which are a legal instrument that gives everyone the rights to use, modify, and redistribute the program's code, or any program derived from it, but only if the distribution terms are unchanged. 
 * Copyleft is a way of using of the copyright on the program. It doesn't mean abandoning the copyright; in fact, doing so would make copyleft impossible.
 * GNU General Public License (GPL), GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL)
 * Softwares released under GPLv2 (or later)
  - GNU packages (e.g. GIMP, gcc, Emacs)
  - Linux kernel
  - VLC
  - WordPress
  - Drupal
  - Joomla
  - MariaDB (post-Oracle MySQL fork)
  - Notepad++
  - Red Hat Storage Server
 
Non-copyleft license 
 * Modified versions of the program can be non-free software
 * BSD licenses
   - Scala Programming Lang
   - Go (programming language)
   - Zend Framework
   - ReactJS
 * Apache 2.0 license
   - Android Operating System
   - Software under Apache Software Foundation (lots of them) including Groovy, Spark, Solr, OpenOffice, JMeter
 * MIT license
   - Jenkins
   - Node.js
   - Ruby on Rails
   - jQuery
   
Nonfree software
 * any software that is not free. Its use, redistribution or modification is prohibited, or requires you to ask for permission, or is restricted so much that you effectively can't do it freely. 
 * Proprietary software is another name for nonfree software. Includes Freeware and Shareware.
 
How to use GPL License
 1. Copyright notice. Year of release. If several people helped write the code, use all their names. The symbol “©” is optional.
 2. If you have copied code from other programs covered by the same license, copy their copyright notices too. Put all the copyright notices together, right near the top of each file.
 3. There is no legal requirement to register your copyright with anyone; simply distributing the program makes it copyrighted. However, it is a very good idea to register the copyright, because that puts you in a stronger position against anyone who violates the license. (Copyright Office, The National Library building, 2nd floor, T.M. Kalaw St., Ermita, Manila.)
 
    Copyright 2017 Juan Dela Cruz
 
     This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
    (at your option) any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 
Real-world example:

 https://github.com/xbmc/xbmc/blob/master/xbmc/cores/DataCacheCore.cpp

The Injustice of Proprietariness
 * The Amazon Kindle has a back door that can erase books.
 * <add more example here>
 
History according to Richard Stallman, of GNU Project and wikipedia
 * pre-1974, software was not copyrightable and therefore always in public domain.
 * 1974 US Commission on New Technological Uses of Copyrighted Works (CONTU) decided that "computer programs, to the extent that they embody an author's original creation, are proper subject matter of copyright"
 * 1983 Free software movement started 
 * 1983 court decisions such as Apple v. Franklin in 1983 for object code, clarified that the Copyright Act gave computer programs the copyright status of literary works.
 * 1984 FSF Movement launched development of GNU Operating System
 * 1988 Software is now by default copyright-protected and needed an explicit waiver statement or license of the author. (Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988).
 * 1998 Splinter group used "open source" instead of "free software" to avoid misunderstanding
   - but it soon became associated with philosophical views quite different from those of the free software movement
   - Some of the supporters of open source considered the term a “marketing campaign for free software,” which would appeal to business executives by highlighting the software's practical benefits, while not raising issues of right and wrong that they might not like to hear. Other supporters flatly rejected the free software movement's ethical and social values. Whichever their views, when campaigning for open source, they neither cited nor advocated those values. The term “open source” quickly became associated with ideas and arguments based only on practical values, such as making or having powerful, reliable software. Most of the supporters of open source have come to it since then, and they make the same association.
 * 2017 freedom respecting software, I (the presenter) declare that FRS is the best term to use (joke)