The 19th INTERNATIONAL DAAAM SYMPOSIUM
"Intelligent Manufacturing & Automation: Focus on Next Generation of Intelligent Systems and Solutions"
22-25th October 2008
IS OPEN SOURCE REALLY FREE OF CHARGE?
VUJIČIĆ TOMIĆ, B.; POGARČIĆ, I. & NIŽIĆ, B.
Abstract: Paper is considering a problem of open software
system. Since the open software is regularly identified with free
software, problem was primarily analyzed from the financial
aspect respectively is open software truly free of charge. Within
frames of global e-Business open software can significantly
influence on business costs. Even though open software’s
application in a concrete situation need not necessarily lower
business costs it would be recommendable to examine
possibilities of its usage. The authors also express their opinion
regarding indicated problem from the aspects of their own
business.
Key words: Open Source, Freeware, GNU, Licence, Public
Software
1. INTRODUCTION
There are freeware and free software. In most cases these
two categories overlap, but not always. Freeware is a kind of
software which can be used free of charge. Free software is
software which offers complete freedom in its usage. Many
developers believe in releasing their software freely, but have
hesitated to do so because they're concerned about losing
control over their software. Licensing issues are complicated,
and both the facts and fallacies you hear word-of-mouth can
add to the confusion. (St. Laurent, 2004):
The most famous licence of free software is GNU GPL
(General Public Licence) which declares that free software
meets the following conditions:
 Freedom to execute a program, regardless of its purpose.
 Freedom to study how a program works and how to make
adjustments to it to satisfy our needs. Access to source code
is necessary condition for this freedom.
 Freedom to distribute program copies so we can help others
with it.
 Freedom to improve program and to give improved
program to public, which means allowing that all
community benefits from it. Access to the source code is
necessary condition for this freedom.
According to those criteria, software which is freeware, but
has no free access to the source code isn't free software.
However, all free software is at the same time also free of
charge. When we know that, the answer to the subject of
this paper is obvious. However, a fact that exists OS
software and that it is completely free of charge, opens a
few very interesting questions (Goldman&Gabriel, 2005)
Namely, these are:
 Why is someone ready to spend so much time needed to
develop quality software and after that give away all rights
to economic benefits of that work?
 Is the development of OS community a threat to the
software industry?
 How can we make profit on OS software?
 How reliable is OS software?
2. WHY WOULD SOMEBODY DEVELOP OS?
Many people wonder why somebody is ready to spend a lot
of time developing the software and after completing it, give
freedom to others - not just to use it free of charge, but also all
other freedoms. (Cusumano, 2005) Sometimes, to create quality
software, time horizon is few months, in some cases even years.
At first glance, that kind of behaviour is at least unusual.
The main reason why this is strange to us is that we live in
a capitalist society where most of the things/services are viewed
through the prism of economic gain and loss. However, the
system of values in OS community is somehow different, which
leads to strengthening of the OS community and quality of the
OS software which is for the end user completely free of
charge. After studying different texts about the question of this
chapter, one can see that the answer to that question has two
levels: an individual development of OS software and an
organization which finances the development of OS software.
It is very important to make the distinction between these two
levels, because each one has different reasons for the
development of OS software.
2.1. An individual starts with the development
Scenario: There are people with great software
development skill. They decide for whatever reason to create
quality and useful software. They put it under the OS license.
Why? They did it for the personal satisfaction. Components of
that satisfaction could be challenge, enjoying in programming,
creation of something which will be their legacy, pleasure
because they are participating is something very significant,
potential indirect economic benefit: quality publicity on the job
market. If the result of that work is also useful to others, that
can be the initial spark of very positive energy. With
participation of others their work achieves higher level of
quality. They give away something which they would do
anyway, so they do not lose anything. On the contrary,
contribution of others creates something more valuable also for
the original author. Because all of us need some income in our
life to live normally, we can make assumption that people
involved in OS activity have some sort of income in their life.
For example, they have a job and in spare time they enjoy
programming. In their spare time people do what they love. If
somebody likes programming, spending time like that is not in
any way different from spending time doing some hobby.
2.2. Big company is financing the development of OS
Scenario: Big organization decides to give source code of
its software under the GNU LGPL licence. Why? The reason is
much more different than for individuals, because in the case of
companies there is economic motive which is easy to
comprehend: according to that life of a company depends of
their profit. (Goldman&Gabriel, 2005). Economic motives
could be very positive publicity, creation of the market for
some other non free products which are the great addition to OS
software and creation of the market for giving support which
becomes the source of income (www.opensource.org).
An example of the corporation like that is Sun
Microsystems (www.sun.org). Their product OpenOffice.org is
under LGPL licence. In addition to OpenOffice, they have also
Java whose source code is available, but it is under the Sun
licence. Partially, they give for free also Solaris operating
system.
Authors of this paper deeply respect that kind of approach
to the market because the end user benefits from that. This
paper has been done with the OpenOffice.org Writer (in its
first version).
3. IS OS SOFTWARE THREAT TO
COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE INDUSTRY?
THE
This question rises after strengthening of OS community.
The answer is: partially yes. But not so much that it can cause
serious damage to it. Furthermore, in some areas it can even
make it stronger. The beauty is that the end user can just benefit
from the strong OS community. Commercial software industry
is too strong so OS community cannot make some serious harm
to it. But, in some cases, OS community has influence on the
commercial software industry.
It is difficult to say in which ways exactly the development
of OS community makes influence on software industry, and
that is because of its dynamics, but it seems that it is making it
better and it is giving a motive to the commercial companies to
make an extra effort in the improvement of their products. This
is important because only with extra features their product can
motivate customers to buy it and not to use completely free OS
alternative.
By using OS software, companies can reduce their costs.
This statement is valid also for the software companies - e.g.
companies which make custom made software for other
companies. In the OS community there is not big interest for
the development of that kind of software. This means,
development of OS is a threat just to the part of software
industry which produces popular software. Commercial
companies which produce that kind of software must make an
extra effort, but everybody else has better position in the
development of custom made software.
Studying different sources, the author of this paper has
found two ideas related to OS:
 Hardware manufactures can give OS drivers and with that
give an opportunity to the market to improve it further on.
 the theory "what is valuable, will be paid" which says that if
some software product has the value to the user, even if it is
free of charge, the user will make donation for that
software. This is very questionable theory because it seems
too idealistic.
4. HOW RELIABLE IS OS SOFTWARE?
The answer to that question depends primarily on the level
of the development and the interest of OS community for some
tool. In case that there is great interest, the answer is definitely
yes. Reasons for that are:

great number of people are testing that kind of
software and together they participate in the
correction of found errors

because of the openness of source code, it is great
probability that certain security threats will be
discovered and immediately resolved

Great number of people participates in further
improvements through suggestions, documentation,
translation, addition of new functions etc.
If there is enough interest, sometimes it is just a question of
time when will some tools become more quality and stableness
than their commercial alternatives. Of course, if some software
is the result of work of just one person, and OS community has
no interest in that product, it is very possible that software isn't
of high quality and stability.
5. USE CASE: AUTHORS OPINION OF OS
Professionally - The author and his company are not
threatened by the OS projects. At the contrary, the company can
even profit from OS by reducing its costs. There is no threat
since the company develops custom made software adjusted to
special needs of the particular client. Because of the nature of
company’s software, OS shows no interest in it.
Personally - The author desired to create two programs
/games using C# programming language: Sapere - dictionary
and program for studying foreign words Abadel – game
Othello/Reversi.
When they will be finished, the following choices are
optional:
Commercial version - try to sell it to someone: it is too
much hassle for what it offers. Earning is too low and only
enormous amounts of money could be a proper motive. Even if
that would be commercial, because of the high rate of piracy,
no matter of used protection, people who would like to use it
without paying would find the way. Commercial version would
help to reduce the program usage.
Freeware version - free of charge, but closed source code.
Not bad, but there is a better option.
OS version - the best option. That significantly improves
the chances for further improvements of programs. In the case
the final products would have real quality there is not any
reason why the program would be in some Linux distributions.
This would initiate a great publicity, which could give more
benefit than harm on the job market (e.g. one can write in CV
that programs can be downloaded from the Internet and to
mention in which Linux distributions programs are). This is the
reason why the programs are being developed in C# in a way
that they are compatible with Mono and .net 1.1 platforms. By
working like that we will have software which has better
chance to spread to both platforms: Linux and Windows.
We give advantage to the OS community. We also respect
freeware versions if they have high quality. No matter why is
someone active within the OS community, this is one very
positive thing which brings benefits to many people.
6. INSTEAD OF CONCLUSION: NEW PARADIGM
Speaking of profit, OS approach put emphasis on service
and not on the products. OS is response to monopoly. There is
whole new paradigm: not just Windows or Linux platform, but
Internet platform. (E.g. Google is using 100 000 Linux servers),
and everybody is using Google, which indirectly means that we
are also using the service of Linux platform. Amazon is also
using OS.
Internet platform - Web (Internet) has its foundation in OS:
TCP/IP protocol, BIND, DNS, sendmail, etc., Apache Server
and Linux as servers. Within the new paradigm, real money lies
in service which is based on the free products and not any more
in products themselves. For example: BIND is the protocol for
DNS. Author of BIND does not make money from it, but
Domain Name Services have.
10. REFERENCES AND RECOMMENDED LINKS
Cusumano, M. at al. (2005): Perspectives on Free and Open
Source Software (Hardcover), the MIT Press
Goldman, R.; Gabriel, R.P. (2005): Innovation Happens
Elsewhere: Open Source as Business Strategy, Morgan
Kaufmann, 2005
St. Laurent, A.M. (2004): Understanding Open Source and
Free Software Licensing, O'Reilly Media, Inc.
www.fsf.org: The GNU Project Free Software Foundation (Last
access 2008-06-20)
www.opensource.org: Open Source Initiative OSI–Welcome
(Last access 2008-06-20)
www.linux.org: The Linux Home Page (Last acces 2008-06-05)
DAAAM AUTHOR QUESTIONNAIRE
PAPER DATA
Name and email address of corresponding author: brankica@veleri.hr , pogarcic@veleri.hr
This paper will be presented (oral presentation / poster): oral
This paper will be NOT presented at Symposium please send the Proceedings to following address:
Please send PDF Off prints of Paper to following e-mail address: brankica@veleri.hr , pogarcic@veleri.hr
AUTHORS DATA
1.
2.First / Middle / Family Name: Brankica , Vujičić-Tomić
3.Titles: graduate in economics, M.B.A.
4.Position / Since: head off accounting office
5.Institution: HT Hrvatski telekom
6.Place and Date of Birth : 1962-01-31
7.Nationality / Citizenship: Croatian/Croatia
8.Field of interests (key words): accounting, finance, costs, auditing
9.Hobbies: Skiing, music
10.E-mail address: tomic@veleri.hr
11.Site:
12.Phone & Fax #: +385 98 443 131 & +385 51 213 555
13.Postal address: Cikovici, Resetari 24, 51 215 Kastav
14.I am interested in the following DAAAM activities to be active member of one of our international committees, and reviewer of
papers and manuscripts
15.First / Middle / Family Name: Ivan, Pogarčić
16.Titles: MSc
17.Position / Since: leader of education
18.Institution: Polytechnic of Rijeka
19.Place and Date of Birth : 1953-07-18
20.Nationality / Citizenship: Croatian/Croatia
21.Field of interests (key words): Database, developement of information system, e-learning
22.Hobbies: Skiing, music
23.E-mail address: pogarcic@veleri.hr
24.Site: www.veleri.hr/pogarcic
25.Phone & Fax #: +385 98 456 065 & +385 51 673 529
26.Postal address: Marinici Mucici 46 a, 51216 Viskovo
27.I am interested in the following DAAAM activities to be active member of one of our international committees, and reviewer of
papers and manuscripts
28.First / Middle / Family Name: Berislav, Nižić
29.Titles:
30.Position / Since: student – software developer
31.Institution: Polytechnic of Rijeka
32.Place and Date of Birth : Rijeka, 1978-10-18
33.Nationality / Citizenship: Croatian/Croatia
34.Field of interests (key words): Database, Programming
35.Hobbies: Othello
36.E-mail address: bnizic@gmail.com
37.Site:
38.Phone & Fax #: +385 91 7311925
39.Postal address: Drazina 4, 51262 Kraljevica
40.I am interested in the following DAAAM activities to be active member of one of our international committees, and reviewer of
papers and manuscripts