Open Source and Free 30-day Trial? [closed]

Question

Can it be open source and not free? Why open source not free software?

i saw a book about this and i thought i check it out. Logo says "Open Source Business Intelligence". There are better known reporting frameworks like Jasper Reports aka " The Most Widely Used Open Source Business Intelligence" .. is it just catch phrase?

http://www.pentaho.com/products/try_bi_suite.php

Answer 1

The Open Source Initiative and Open Source movement have definitions of Open Source that are almost completely equivalent to the Free Software Foundation's definition of Free Software. However, "Open Source" is not a trademark or anything like that, and people are legally free to use the phrase as they like. Since the site refers to a 30-day free trial, I'd imagine that they aren't using "Open Source" in the same sense.

(Unfortunately, there's nothing anybody can do to stop the confusion. There was "open source" software for a long time before the OSI, which typically meant software you could get the source for. EDIT: The historical usage is dubious, but "Open Source" is simply too descriptive to be trademarked. You can trademark a made-up word ("Pentium") easily, or a word used in another context ("Vista"), but it's real difficult to trademark a descriptive term ("Open Source"). Without trademark protection or the equivalent, there's no legal way to stop anybody from supplying their own meaning for the phrase.)

Even if they were, they could still charge. If you look at the OSI's rules for Open Source licenses, you'll see that all OS licenses must permit commercial use of the software, including selling it for whatever the seller can get for it. Similarly, Free Software (as defined by the FSF) is not necessarily free of charge, but does give you certain freedoms with the code.

Answer 2

You can read the open source definition here. As you can see, there is nothing keeping them from charging money for it, they just have to provide sources to customers, and customers have to be allowed to redistribute modified versions.

Answer 3

There another sense of "open source" that they might be using. In journalism there is an idea of open sources, i.e. sources that are not private to the writer. Maybe they mean something more like this, but it's probably just a marketing ploy.

Answer 4

Open source as the phrase indicates only means that the source code is open and free so that you can modify it as you please. The actual product can still cost you.

It's not freeware, it's open source. :)

Answer 5

From the FSF definition of "Free Software":

"Free software" is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of "free" as in "free speech," not as in "free beer."

You can get the source and you can do what you like with it. That does not mean the author (or anyone else for that matter) cannot charge for distribution and support of products created using that source. Someone offers a service for a fee, and you are free to take it or leave it depending on the value you might place on such service, the alternative is that you support yourself, and often that's fine, but sometimes the cost-benefit weighs in at value-added services.

Answer 6

They could mean that some of the core business logic is open source, but some of their uses could be closed source. Or you might be able to download the source and build it.

Look at RedHat Linux. Its open source (in fact there is a o.s. spinoff) but you only get RedHat support if you pay, and people pay A LOT.

Answer 7

If you have a copy of the software and someone claims that you can't use it (or continue to use it) without paying them, then they are claiming that that software is not open source. If they have a legal right to force you to stop using it, then the software is not open source. Open source gives you a lot of protections: not only to keep using the software, but to inspect the source, to modify it, and redistribute both the original and your modifications.

But there are various things people do that cost money: they will charge you to give you a copy of the software in the first place (this will only work if there aren't very many customers; if they try to prohibit the customers from sharing what they've paid for, then the software stops being open source and in some cases is a GPL violation, and if there are a lot of customers who have the legal right to put the software up on a web site somewhere, sooner or later one will), or they will charge you for proprietary add-ons, or they will sell you services related to the software.

Answer 8

"Can it be open source and not free? Why open source not free software?"

Yes.

An organization can charge you a fee to provide, support and debug open source products.

See http://www.fsf.org/ for more information.

For other opinions, see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html and http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd

Answer 9

I always think that Open Source see itself as a pragmatic & an effective business model to do software for free At the other side, Free Softwares are more 'bout "philosophical" and moral issue (aka Intellectual propriety, etc)

Answer 10

Open Source does not imply $0 cost. $0 Cost does not imply Open Source.

Open Source means that as you get the software, you're entitled to see the source, and do stuff to it (within certain constraints specified by the licenses)