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Guest
Editors: Joe Ammann, Jesús M.
González-Barahona,
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Free Software Today [PDF:
8 pages, 164 KB]
Pedro de las Heras
Quirós
and Jesús M. González-Barahona
Abstract: The
world
of free software is surprisingly dynamic. The pace at which new
developments,
new releases, new companies are being announced, is really
breathtaking.
Nearly every appraisal of free programs from just one year ago is
practically
worthless, due to the constant improvements many of these have
undergone
in that time. Projects that two years ago were just beginning, and had
produced practically no software, today are fully up and running, and
their
programs are of sufficient quality to meet the requirements of many
users.
The position of many major companies with regard to free software is
changing
with every passing month. New companies which have been in existence
for
just a few years are fast becoming giants and are listed on the stock
market.
Which is why, if we want to have a realistic idea of what the world of
free software is like today, it's vital for the data on which we base
this
idea to be right up to date. Any impression based on data from a few
months
ago will very possibly be wrong. The aim of this article is to show
what
the situation is at this precise moment in time, so the reader can be
well-informed
and come to his or her own conclusions.
Should Business
Adopt
Free Software? [PDF: 8 pages, 169
KB]
Gilbert Robert and
Frédéric
Schütz
Abstract: More
than
ever before, people are talking about the phenomenon of free software,
which has been publicised by a growing number of articles in various
journals
and by the recent stances taken in its favour by large enterprises such
as IBM, Sun and Hewlett-Packard. Free software and its flagship Linux
are
of interest to more and more people; individual users as well as those
responsible for computing in multinational companies. Their needs are
certainly
not identical, but the same questions crop up time and time again. What
is Linux? What can it add to my business? Is it compatible with
Windows?
What applications will run under it? I have heard that it is neither
secure
nor reliable. Is it supported? The aim of this article is to explain in
more detail what free software is, and what its advantages are for
users,
and to provide an overview of its status in business, in particular by
looking at the obstacles which still stand in the way of its use.
Harm from The Hague [PDF:
3 pages, 138 KB]
Richard Stallman
Abstract: The
proposed
Hague Treaty threatens to subject software developers in Europe to U.S.
software patents. The consequence is that you could be sued about
information
you distributed under the laws of any country, and the judgement would
be inforced by your country. We republish this article from the WWW1
with
the kind permission of the author.
Software
Patentability
with Compensatory Regulation: a Cost Evaluation [PDF:
10 pages, 176 KB]
Jean Paul Smets and
Hartmut
Pilch
Abstract: Europe
is
preparing major changes in its patent system. The European Patent
Office
(EPO) has proposed to remove limitations on patentability, such as the
exclusion of computer programs in Art. 52 of the European Patent
Convention
(EPC). A report by the French Academy of Technologies supports this
proposal
but suggests additional regulation measures in order to reduce
potential
abuses of software patents. In this article, we try to assess the costs
of such regulation measures. They add up to an estimated 1-5 billion
euros
per year for the European Union. Various regulation approaches and
cheaper
legislative approaches are compared.
Open Source in a
Major
Swiss Bank [PDF: 3 pages, 139 KB]
Klaus Bucka-Lassen and
Jan Sorensen
Abstract: What
could
induce a major Swiss bank to use an Open Source product? This article
uses
the example of Jakarta Struts to describe the advantages and
disadvantages
of Open Source software, and to highlight which of these are of
significance
for a financial services provider. It describes the problems that
arose,
and what convinced management to use Struts for Web application
developments.
European Initiatives
Concerning
the Use of Free Software in the Public Sector [PDF:
5 pages, 150 KB]
Juan Jesús
Muñoz
Esteban
Abstract: The
European
Commission is beginning to make use of free software for some of their
strategic initiatives. The IDA programme has carried out a symposium, a
study of the use of free software in several Administrations of
different
countries, to analyse the reasons for adopting it. The symposium
considers
under what conditions should the use of free software be made general,
and plans to create an exchange forum on the Internet. Among the
programme's
long term aims is to become free of dependencies and to promote
transparency,
although in the short term the idea is to increase awareness of free
software
among the different Administrations.
GNU Enterprise
Application
Software [PDF: 4 pages, 179 KB]
Neil Tiffin and
Reinhard
Müller
Abstract: GNU
Enterprise
(GNUe) is a free software project which aims at providing an ERP
(Enterprise
Resource Planning) solution, comparable to SAP R/3. GNUe is a set of
integrated
business applications and tools to support accounting, supply chain,
human
resources, sales, manufacturing, and other business processes. This
article
describes the project, the idea and motivation for developers and users
behind it, and the project's current status.
The Debian GNU/Linux
Project
[PDF:
5 pages, 148 KB]
Javier
Fernández-Sanguino
Peña
Abstract: The
Debian
GNU/Linux project is currently one of the most ambitious free software
projects, involving a large number of developers from far and wide who
work together with one aim: to create a totally free operating system.
Journal File Systems
in
Linux [PDF: 7 pages, 181 KB]
Ricardo Galli
Abstract: First
of
all, there is no a clear winner, XFS is better in some aspects or
cases,
ReiserFS in others, and both are better than Ext2 in the sense that
they
are comparable in performance (again, sometimes faster, sometimes
slightly
slower) but they a journaling file systems, and you already know what
are
their advantages… And perhaps the most important moral, is that Linux
buffer/cache
is really impressive and affected, positively, all the figures of my
compilations,
copies and random reads and writes. So, I would say, buy memory and go
journaled ASAP.
The Crisis of Free
Scientific
Software [PDF: 3 pages, 141 KB]
David Santo Orcero
Abstract: The
scientific
world was among the pioneers in creating a great amount of Free
Software
during the 1970s and 80s. In the 1990s the concept of Free Software
really
started to spread into other areas and the creation of free scientific
software was reduced. In certain fields this reached a point where
there
are either no free tools available whatsoever, or no more free tools
are
being actively developed. In this paper we shall analyse the possible
causes
and propose some solutions to this problem.
Counting Potatoes:
the
Size of Debian 2.2 [PDF: 7
pages,
159 KB]
Jesús M.
González-Barahona,
Miguel A. Ortuño Pérez, Pedro de las Heras Quirós,
José Centeno González and Vicente Matellán Olivera
Abstract: Debian is the largest Free Software distribution, with well over 2,800 source packages in the latest stable release (Debian 2.2) and more than 4,000 source packages in the release currently in preparation. But, how large is "the largest"? In this paper, we use David Wheeler's sloccount system to determine the number of physical source lines of code (SLOC) of Debian 2.2 (aka Potato). We show that Debian 2.2 includes over 56,000,000 physical SLOC (almost twice than Red Hat 7.1, released about 8 months later), showing that the Debian development model (based on the work of a large group of voluntary developers spread around the world) is at least as capable as other development methods (like the more centralized one, based on the work of employees, used by Red Hat or Microsoft) to manage distributions of this size.
Many things have changed since, more than four years ago, Novática published an issue on Free Software. The Free Software community is not any longer composed of programmers writing software in their spare time. There are now many businesses which have incorporated Free Software into their strategy, either as producers or as consumers. Computer literates in general have shown interest in knowing Free Software such as GNU/Linux. Individuals and organizations investigate how they can benefit from its advantages. Free Software is quickly maturing and becoming part of the rich and complex information society.
We took this wealth and complexity into account when selecting the topics and points of view for this monograph. We aimed at providing a wide perspective of the actual, mature, situation of Free Software, without getting involved into doctrinal controversies. These are the papers, grouped by topic:
- Tutorials
Free
Software
Today (Pedro de las Heras Quirós and Jesús M.
González-Barahona)
reviews the current state of some of the more important programs,
projects,
business and initiatives in the Free Software world.
Should Business Adopt Software? (Gilbert Robert and Frédéric Schütz) provides clues about advantages and challenges that business considering the use of free software are encountering.
Both tutorials define the terms "Free Software" and "Open Source Software" and explain their economic outcomes.
- Legal Issues
Harm
from The Hague (Richard Stallman) explains the dangers behind
the
Hague Treaty, and shows that, if applied to information technology
issues,
it could become a backdoor through which laws that were not passed in
our
countries could be imposed on us. The consequences in areas such as
copyright
or software patent could directly affect the legal status of Free
Software.
Software Patentability with Compensatory Regulation: a Cost Evaluation (Jean Paul Smets and Hartmut Pilch) analyses the impact that software patents have on the economy of software development, and the cost that current proposals of laws about software patents could have on the European society.
- Free Software in Practice
What is the relevance of Open Source
and Free Software for the practitioner? We have selected two papers,
one
reporting about the introduction of an Open Source in a major Swiss
bank,
and one reviewing the use of Free Software in European public
institutions,
with details on some interesting experiences:
Open
Source in a Major Swiss Bank (Klaus Bucka-Lassen and Jan
Sorensen)
and European Initiatives Concerning the
Use
of Free Software in the Public Sector (Juan Jesús
Muñoz
Esteban).
- Technical Papers
Finally, we have included technical
papers that give details about Free programs and projects: GNU
Enterprise Application Software (Neil Tiffin and Reinhard
Müller),
The
Debian GNU/Linux Project (Javier Fernández-Sanguino
Peña)
describe two quite different models of development of Free Software. Journal
File Systems in Linux (Ricardo Galli) and The
Crisis of Free Scientific Software (David Santo Orcero) review
the current state of the art in their respective areas. Finally, Counting
Potatoes: the Size of Debian 2.2 (Jesús M.
González-Barahona,
Miguel A. Ortuño Pérez, Pedro de las Heras Quirós,
José Centeno González and Vicente Matellán
Olivera)
offers an estimation of the amount of Free Software that is included in
Debian, one of the most popular Free software distributions of
GNU/Linux.
If you are patient enough to read all these papers, or at least skim through them all, we hope you will acquire an overview of the current situation of free software. We hope to have contributed informations that will help you to decide if this new way of developing, distributing and using software can help you in any way. Here are some Web references:
- Definitions
Debian Free Software Guidelines:
http://www.debian.org/social_contract
Open Source definition: http://opensource.org/docs/definition.html
Free Software Foundation: http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
- Organizations that promote
Free
Software
Free Software Foundation:
http://www.fsf.org/
Open Source Initiative: http://opensource.org/
- Information about some free
software
Apache: http://apache.org/
Linux: http://linux.com/
GNOME: http://gnome.org/
KDE: http://kde.org/
OpenOffice: http://openoffice.org/
GNU programs: http://gnu.org/
- Free operating system
distributions
Debian: http://debian.org/
RedHat: http://redhat.com/
Mandrake: http://mandrake.com/
Suse: http://suse.com
FreeBSD: http://freebsd.org/
- Free news sites
Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/
Advogato: http://advogato.org/
BarraPunto: http://barrapunto.com/
Finally, we would like to thank the authors of the papers. Without their volunteer contribution it would have been impossible to put it together. And of course, we have to thank François Louis Nicolet and Rafael Fernández Calvo, editors of Informatik/Informatique and Novática, the opportunity of collaborating with them, and the confidence they had on us when they asked us to prepare this collection as guest editors.
Joe Ammann has a degree in electrical engineering in 1990 from the ETH Zurich. He is a member of the board of /ch/open, the Swiss Open Systems User Group, and has been promoting the use of Open Source software in Switzerland in the last years. <joe@pyx.ch>
Jesús
M. González Barahona is a lecturer at the Universidad
Rey
Juan Carlos, and collaborator of BarraPunto.Com.
He began working on the promotion of Free Software in 1991, in the
PDSOFT
group (later the Sobre group). Since then he has been involved in many
activities in this field, such as the organisation of seminars, giving
courses and taking part in Free Software working groups. He is
currently
collaborating on several Free Software projects (Debian and The Espiral
among others), he takes part in the Working Group on Free software
promoted
by the
DG-INFO
of the European Commission, he collaborates with associations like
Hispalinux
and EuroLinux, he writes for several
publications
about Free Software, and he advises companies in their strategies
regarding
this subject. Co-editor of the Free Software
section
of Novática. <jgb@gsyc.escet.urjc.es>
Pedro de las Heras Quirós teaches at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, and is a collaborator at BarraPunto.Com. Since the early 1990s he has been a user of Free Software, and has collaborated in the Sobre group, devoted to Free Software, since its foundation. He has worked in the organization of congresses, expos and seminars related to free software, and has been editor and author for several publications on this topic. Co-editor of the Free Software section of Novática. <pheras@gsyc.escet.urjc.es>
| Last updated on December 26, 2001 | by Rafael Fernández Calvo and François Louis Nicolet |
| <rfcalvo@ati.es> |
