Open Source Software Reasearch Paper
IT302
11/18/12
Research Assignment Week 6
Free and Open Source Software has been around for quite some time. Free software has always been a controversy. This time someone is trying to take a stance against it. More than just someone but a major software company namely Microsoft. The whole issue is coming against software patents. Patents are there to protect the make, use, and selling of an invention but in this case would deal with software. Microsoft is not keen on the idea of software being readily available especially to businesses at little to no cost. In the business world this is unheard of. To let companies take control and create custom software with almost no cost is being attacked. Microsoft is quoted in a CNN Money article: “Microsoft takes on the free world” as saying, "We live in a world where we honor, and support the honoring of, intellectual property," They were quoted as calling this a matter of principle. I can understand principle and I’m definitely not against making money. I believe that enough is enough. Free and Open Source Software is there to benefit the public. In suggesting that business owners need only buy licensed software or that business owners are only obligated to purchase said software is irrational. Putting aside costs, theoretically let’s say there is a software developer that is hired by a company to create custom software. This company favors Linux rather than Windows not to say that Windows isn’t a great operating system but to say that someone does not have the freedom to create is ridiculous. To limit this company because of some alleged patent laws is preposterous. Eben Moglen, longtime counsel to the Free Software Foundation and head of the Software Freedom Law Center, says that, “software is a mathematical algorithm and, as such, not patentable.” This statement is critical because of the seeming less attack on inventors and software developers. Software has always been improved and with the strict patent
11/18/12
Research Assignment Week 6
Free and Open Source Software has been around for quite some time. Free software has always been a controversy. This time someone is trying to take a stance against it. More than just someone but a major software company namely Microsoft. The whole issue is coming against software patents. Patents are there to protect the make, use, and selling of an invention but in this case would deal with software. Microsoft is not keen on the idea of software being readily available especially to businesses at little to no cost. In the business world this is unheard of. To let companies take control and create custom software with almost no cost is being attacked. Microsoft is quoted in a CNN Money article: “Microsoft takes on the free world” as saying, "We live in a world where we honor, and support the honoring of, intellectual property," They were quoted as calling this a matter of principle. I can understand principle and I’m definitely not against making money. I believe that enough is enough. Free and Open Source Software is there to benefit the public. In suggesting that business owners need only buy licensed software or that business owners are only obligated to purchase said software is irrational. Putting aside costs, theoretically let’s say there is a software developer that is hired by a company to create custom software. This company favors Linux rather than Windows not to say that Windows isn’t a great operating system but to say that someone does not have the freedom to create is ridiculous. To limit this company because of some alleged patent laws is preposterous. Eben Moglen, longtime counsel to the Free Software Foundation and head of the Software Freedom Law Center, says that, “software is a mathematical algorithm and, as such, not patentable.” This statement is critical because of the seeming less attack on inventors and software developers. Software has always been improved and with the strict patent