Kathmandu:

Over 200 groups from 60 countries participated in the second annual Software Freedom Day on September 10 to showcase the excellent range of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and demonstrate how it can be used to save money and gain freedom in every sector of the information society. Nepal celebrated Software Freedom Day (SFD), organised at Yala Maya Kendra with the joint effort of various educational institutions, civil society, media and IT communities.

A Brief History of FOSS In 1997, Eric Raymond’s famous analogies in ‘The Cathedral and the Bazaar’ contrasted the FOSS development model with traditional software development methods.

Then in 1998, in response to Netscape’s release of Netscape Navigator code as FOSS, a group of developers came together and the label ‘Open Source’ was created. This led to the formation of the Open Source Initiative and the Open Source Definition. The primary focus of this initiative was to get the corporate world to pay attention to the FOSS development process and to steer a path away from the ‘confrontational attitude’ of the free software movement.

What is FOSS?

Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) are programs which give the users the freedom to run for any purpose, to study and modify the program, and to redistribute copies in either the original or modified form. There are two major philosophies in the FOSS world. The first one is Free Software Foundation (FSF) philosophy and the other one is Open Source Initiative (OSI) philosophy. According to FSF philosophy, free software is about protecting four user freedoms:

1. Freedom to run a program for any purpose.

2. Freedom to study how a program works and adapt it to a person’s need.

3. Freedom to redistribute copies.

4. Freedom to improve a program and release the improvements to the public.

According to OSI philosophy, when programmers can read, redistribute and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves at an astonishing pace in the distributed development model in comparison to the traditional closed development model. It is more focused on the technical values of making powerful, reliable software, and is more business-friendly than FSF.

Benefits of using FOSSThere are many benefits of using FOSS, some of them are lower IT costs as software is not like making a car! Once a software has been made, you can

make any number of copies. Better security is one of the strengths of FOSS software and not to forget are reliability and stability.