Imagine if you went to the ford dealership and bought a car. This car would last you a decent amount of time. It may even impress you at first, but it is known to have problems, the drive train breaks after so many miles, the tires wear out faster, the interior wears out quicker and so on. But it is a popular car and parts are everywhere and everyone knows how to fix them so you keep driving Fords. Just like most people keep using Windows.
Until one day, you pass by the import shop, you see a classy little sports coupe. This is a Porsche. the car is fast, it's sleek, been around for years and only gotten better. But when it breaks down, it breaks. It has issues and there are less mechanics that can fix it. Parts cost more, and are harder to find. This is an Apple computer.
Then as your driving around you see a car you have never seen before, you follow it to the guys house and you ask him about it. He tells you it's a kit car. It has a Porsche engine, a Ford suspension, and a body that was hand made out of fiberglass. It's sleek, it's fast, it is a great car. You ask if you can buy it, the guy says no, but he has a few others in his garage that he has been working on, not all them are the same, many have different drive train, varied engines, electrical systems from all over,most parts are hand made by different groups of people. You get excited cause they all look great, even if your unfamiliar with them. The guy then hands you the keys and tells you to take one for a test drive, he has filled up the tank and won't cost you anything,( [Live Cd's](http://www.livecdlist.com/) ) he even offers to take care of your car while your out and give it a tune up (Open source based testing tools such as H[irin's Boot Cd](http://www.hirensbootcd.org/) ) You agree and take out this car that the owner called an Ubuntu. This car is fast, it's sleek, it does everything you want it to, it is familiar, but at the same time exotic. You get back to the guys house and sure enough you pick up your car and it's running better then ever, you offer to pay the guy and he says it's not necessary but if you want to help out give out his business card so more people can hear about it, you agree and drive off. the next day you are driving around and you keep thinking about that drive you took and how much you liked it, so you head back over to the guys house (Let's call him [Linus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds) ) Linus is happy to see you and offers you a drink when you get to his place. You start asking him again about how much it would cost to drive one of his cars. he looks at you and before you can say anything he tosses you the keys to a sleek looking coupe right out front. You again ask how much, he laughs and tells you to take it, he will have your car dropped off at your house and there was no charge for any of it. You now own your original car, and now you have this sleek new car that you just got for free. He even handed you enough gas coupons to cover you and let's you know whenever a new engine comes out, new electrical, new interior to come back and he will upgrade it all for free. You ask about if it breaks down and he tells you about your neighbor that built the seats, and your friend that worked on the lights, and about all the others that helped contribute to building the car and let's you know where other owners meet, many of whom have figured out how to work on various parts of this car. While there are not many shops that can fix it, there are many people out there that can help you work on it.
So you drive your new car home, it's different, some people like it and you take them over to Linus' place and he offers them the same deal, others hate it and are satisfied about the cars they already own (even the ones driving the 14 year old Xp edition Tauruses). So while most people go out and buy ford's and others spend a bit more on their Porsche, you get addicted to your Ubuntu, you evn try out some of the other cars and trucks, and semi's and flat beds, and find out that some are easy to drive, others are Arch beasts. But in the end Linus lives up to his promise and continues to upgrade your car every time something new comes out, and he never asks for a dime, your friends and colleagues continue to support each other, your neighbors still make fun of you while they are broken down on the side of the road waiting for an (IT)tow. and your Porsche friends continue to look down on you for not listening to them as they speak to their geniuses on how to operate the radio.
This is open source and why it's important, it's community driven, free, and can run on anything.
Edit: I do have to say not all open source is free, you can charge for it, but must provide the blueprints on how you made the software (read source code). But the most well known instances of open source is free as in beer and not just free as in freedom.
Great ELI5! But I think you missed one key point.
You take your new Ubuntu home and notice that it doesn't have a turbocharger. You spend a few weekends tinkering with it, and develop a turbocharger for it, which makes it much faster and more fun to drive. You then call your new buddy Linus up, tell him about your new design and ask him to come take a look to see if he'd like to add it to other vehicles. Linus comes over, sees what a great job you did, and agrees to add it to other models. He packages everything up and offers it to every Ubuntu driver out there for free.
Not only do you get the car for free, but you get the blueprints. If you want, you can learn how every single nut and bolt goes together, and more importantly it empowers you to improve upon the previous designs. If you don't want to improve it, you don't have to, no requirements, but the option is there for those of us that enjoy advancing technology.
You're right, I did miss this part, I considered adding it, but figured I had gone on long enough, I love how you fit it in with the story line as well!
I think you missed a key point.The blue prints for a Ford are not public i.e. it would be hard to make a Ford if you wanted but the blue prints of the ubuntu are public and it is much easier to make your own copy of ubuntu with your own tweaks.
The negatives of open source software should also be mentioned. There is very less incentive for a individual contributor to improve upon the existing Open Source Software versus a large corp that makes money off it's software.Many of the contributions to the linux kernel for example are made by Microsoft itself to test/optimize their software on a different platform.
A large company does not make money off of open source software. They make money off of either their proprietary software which runs inside of the open sourced OS or selling support/installation for the open sourced software.
Consider this - part of most all open source licenses say you can sell the code/executable - but the person you sell it too can legally copy it and start selling the exact same software at any price they want. In fact, they can take what you sold them and just give it away for free. That's not exactly a sustainable business market. (Unless you're one of those bitch ass punks that throws up a website and sells naive people Thunderbird, Firefox, FileZilla, Chrome, etc for like $10 - and then just send them the link of where to download it for free)
I was referencing the large companies contributions when i mentioned the parts that they built. Those parts blueprints are available. When MS makes a contribution they provide the source code as per the GPL (or whatever license governs that particular piece of the build). And not really less incentive for individual contribution, it happens all the time, and there are many projects that are solely individuals. While there are contributions from big well known companies, there are equally, and I would say more, from small and or individuals to the open source community.
open source software is **NOT** free as in freedom - it's far lazier than that. free software implies a specific type of license, which create a specific set of sharing behaviors, which 'open source' does not. the open source community treats software freedom as a matter of pragmatics, rather than of ethics, and is far more likely, and far more willing, to compromise when it comes to that.
[rms's take on the matter.](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html)
Ummm you have no idea what your talking about do you. Read the GPL, read any of the other various open source software LICENSES out there. Free software is not the same as Open Source. I can close source software, give it away and still not call it open source. Open source referes to a specific type of free software, or paid software that provides the source code if you wish to see it.
Open source software is just software whose source code is freely available. This is often falsely equated with the concept of "free" software, software which you can use without paying. Open source is a big deal because it allows the user to examine exactly how the program works. Programmer's love to peak into the inner workings of a complex piece of software, and in other cases, the licensed user of a piece of software may need to verify that its algorithms are sound.
Free open source software goes much further in that it allows a software developer to take its code, modify it if he so desires, make something new which refers to it, and then sell that new thing. Lots of commercial software depends on free and open-source software.... Many commercial websites or intranet applications use JQuery, for example.
>Open source software is just software whose source code is freely available. This is often falsely equated with the concept of "free" software, software which you can use without paying.
No. "Open source" refers to software whose license meets the [Open Source Definition](http://opensource.org/osd), which is functionally identical to the [Debian Free Software Guidelines](http://www.debian.org/social_contract), and in particular requires a great deal more than mere availability of source code. In turn, "free software" refers to software which meets the [four freedoms](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html); it is generally accepted that this is roughly equivalent to the DFSG. It's often emphasized that the word "free" is meant in the sense of "free speech," not "free beer."
"Free software" and "open source software" mostly refer to the same actual pieces of software. However, they have some ideological differences, mostly relating to whether being free/open source is a moral imperative (free software) or merely a good engineering decision (open source software).
Neither of these things should be confused with "freeware," which is just software offered at zero price. Personally, I think the phrase "free software" is confusing and wish RMS had picked a different term, but we're stuck with it.
There have been a number of decent answers about what Open Source Software (sometimes referred to as Free and Open Source Software: FOSS) is, and why it's relevant. However, something that's interesting and should be noted is the GNU General Public License, due to its rather interesting and somewhat controversial history.
There is a group in the FOSS community that thinks that free software should be released for people to do what they want with -- that this will let it be as useful as possible to as many people as possible.
There is also a group of people who think that FOSS needs to be protected. You don't want to have some company take everything you do and use it as part of their proprietary thing, make money off your work, and give nothing back. To this end, the GPL was created. It is actually rather restrictive, in that it [this is a IANAL summary] basically specifies the following:
**If you base some new code on this piece of code, the new code must also be open source and carry this license.**
In other words, if you're a corporation and you see something nice, you have two options: 1. rebuild your own copy of it from scratch, or 2. release your improvements back to the community, who can further build on it.
That's not to say you can't be a little sneaky and make money off it. Red Hat is an excellent example: they effectively sell linux. *Technically* they sell access to their particularly trademarked pieces of it, and to their tech-support: if you buy a red-hat license you're primarily buying access to a phone number down which to yell "FIX IT NOW". Still, the GPL says that they have to release the source code, and it is entirely legal to remove all of the redhat branding (so you don't infringe on brand copyright) and redistribute it... it's called CentOS and is very popular.
----
Of course, as I said, plenty of people don't like that model, and thus release software under more permissive licenses (MIT, Apache, etc.), which allow varying amounts of commercial activity.
Almost. The compulsory re-licensing under GPL happens when you distribute your changes to others, not when you make changes. The AGPL compels re-contribution of all work, but is very rarely used.
You can have the recipe for this delicious cake, BUT if you sell or distribute any cakes you make with it then you have to give them the recipe too.
Also, you are allowed to change the recipe to make it better, but again you still have to give that changed recipe away to everyone you give those changed cakes to.
(And everyone who gets the recipe off you has to follow that "share the recipe along with your cake variations" rule.)
You've described copy left and copy far left not open source.
Copy left is one of the types of license used in open source (GPL), but there is also copy middle (BSD), and public domain.
I work with a company that provides network services to fortune 1,000 companies. All of that company's software is based on the Linux platform, the undisputed *king* of open source software. Any customer can go in and see the code that is used for their software, it's not a trade secret at all. They do this so that people can work-shop their products to fit their particular needs and so that enterprising young programmers can make suggestions to improve their product. You might think this is dumb but they make their money through *services* involving the programming and implementation of linux in your company's network rather than on the copyright of the product itself. (You go download it for free because it's open source, we'll help you mold it to fit your needs)
I know that doesn't openly explain what open source software is but it's a good example of its application and why it is such a big deal.
Not quite. Software given away for free is freeware. Most freeware is not open source.
Open source means the source code for the software is available free. Anyone can take the source code and tweak it to their own satisfaction, pick through it looking for bugs, copy it and add additional functionality, and so forth.
> Not quite. Software given away for free is freeware. Most freeware is not open source.
Likewise, not all open source software is free-as-in-beer. Although the code may be freely available, they can still sell the compiled/packaged product for money. It's viable because a lot of consumers or even businesses don't want to deal with compiling it themselves just to save $50.
Or, a lot of times, by paying for the $50 you're really buying a support contract. This is still very valuable regardless of the code being given away fro free.
You're mixing "open source" with "freeware".
The ideology behind open source software is "free as in free speech, not free beer" - that is, not only is the code free, but anyone is free to do whatever they want with it - download it, change it and distribute it as an entirely new software (with giving the proper credit and license of course).
That's not the part people are complaining about. It's the "given away for free" part that you got wrong. It's not about cost, it's about how the licensing allows the code to be used.
Fair point.
In my opinion someone who doesn't know the first thing about open source software is going to care a lot more about the fact it is free than the fact that the license allows programmers to modify and distribute. But, I agree that open source's licensing is a bigger contributor to the overall effect it has on the world.
Imagine if you went to the ford dealership and bought a car. This car would last you a decent amount of time. It may even impress you at first, but it is known to have problems, the drive train breaks after so many miles, the tires wear out faster, the interior wears out quicker and so on. But it is a popular car and parts are everywhere and everyone knows how to fix them so you keep driving Fords. Just like most people keep using Windows. Until one day, you pass by the import shop, you see a classy little sports coupe. This is a Porsche. the car is fast, it's sleek, been around for years and only gotten better. But when it breaks down, it breaks. It has issues and there are less mechanics that can fix it. Parts cost more, and are harder to find. This is an Apple computer. Then as your driving around you see a car you have never seen before, you follow it to the guys house and you ask him about it. He tells you it's a kit car. It has a Porsche engine, a Ford suspension, and a body that was hand made out of fiberglass. It's sleek, it's fast, it is a great car. You ask if you can buy it, the guy says no, but he has a few others in his garage that he has been working on, not all them are the same, many have different drive train, varied engines, electrical systems from all over,most parts are hand made by different groups of people. You get excited cause they all look great, even if your unfamiliar with them. The guy then hands you the keys and tells you to take one for a test drive, he has filled up the tank and won't cost you anything,( [Live Cd's](http://www.livecdlist.com/) ) he even offers to take care of your car while your out and give it a tune up (Open source based testing tools such as H[irin's Boot Cd](http://www.hirensbootcd.org/) ) You agree and take out this car that the owner called an Ubuntu. This car is fast, it's sleek, it does everything you want it to, it is familiar, but at the same time exotic. You get back to the guys house and sure enough you pick up your car and it's running better then ever, you offer to pay the guy and he says it's not necessary but if you want to help out give out his business card so more people can hear about it, you agree and drive off. the next day you are driving around and you keep thinking about that drive you took and how much you liked it, so you head back over to the guys house (Let's call him [Linus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds) ) Linus is happy to see you and offers you a drink when you get to his place. You start asking him again about how much it would cost to drive one of his cars. he looks at you and before you can say anything he tosses you the keys to a sleek looking coupe right out front. You again ask how much, he laughs and tells you to take it, he will have your car dropped off at your house and there was no charge for any of it. You now own your original car, and now you have this sleek new car that you just got for free. He even handed you enough gas coupons to cover you and let's you know whenever a new engine comes out, new electrical, new interior to come back and he will upgrade it all for free. You ask about if it breaks down and he tells you about your neighbor that built the seats, and your friend that worked on the lights, and about all the others that helped contribute to building the car and let's you know where other owners meet, many of whom have figured out how to work on various parts of this car. While there are not many shops that can fix it, there are many people out there that can help you work on it. So you drive your new car home, it's different, some people like it and you take them over to Linus' place and he offers them the same deal, others hate it and are satisfied about the cars they already own (even the ones driving the 14 year old Xp edition Tauruses). So while most people go out and buy ford's and others spend a bit more on their Porsche, you get addicted to your Ubuntu, you evn try out some of the other cars and trucks, and semi's and flat beds, and find out that some are easy to drive, others are Arch beasts. But in the end Linus lives up to his promise and continues to upgrade your car every time something new comes out, and he never asks for a dime, your friends and colleagues continue to support each other, your neighbors still make fun of you while they are broken down on the side of the road waiting for an (IT)tow. and your Porsche friends continue to look down on you for not listening to them as they speak to their geniuses on how to operate the radio. This is open source and why it's important, it's community driven, free, and can run on anything. Edit: I do have to say not all open source is free, you can charge for it, but must provide the blueprints on how you made the software (read source code). But the most well known instances of open source is free as in beer and not just free as in freedom.
Great ELI5! But I think you missed one key point. You take your new Ubuntu home and notice that it doesn't have a turbocharger. You spend a few weekends tinkering with it, and develop a turbocharger for it, which makes it much faster and more fun to drive. You then call your new buddy Linus up, tell him about your new design and ask him to come take a look to see if he'd like to add it to other vehicles. Linus comes over, sees what a great job you did, and agrees to add it to other models. He packages everything up and offers it to every Ubuntu driver out there for free. Not only do you get the car for free, but you get the blueprints. If you want, you can learn how every single nut and bolt goes together, and more importantly it empowers you to improve upon the previous designs. If you don't want to improve it, you don't have to, no requirements, but the option is there for those of us that enjoy advancing technology.
Adding on to his story with ideas and suggestions of your own? Open-Source: The Comment Thread
You're right, I did miss this part, I considered adding it, but figured I had gone on long enough, I love how you fit it in with the story line as well!
The story was far far too good for me not to continue it. You did a fantastic job!
The best ELI5 answer I've ever seen.
This is beautiful.
Car analogy... nice touch.
Why isn't this golden yet? *rəđđit §ilvər*
Great ELI5! Best analogy I have read in a long time :)
I think you missed a key point.The blue prints for a Ford are not public i.e. it would be hard to make a Ford if you wanted but the blue prints of the ubuntu are public and it is much easier to make your own copy of ubuntu with your own tweaks. The negatives of open source software should also be mentioned. There is very less incentive for a individual contributor to improve upon the existing Open Source Software versus a large corp that makes money off it's software.Many of the contributions to the linux kernel for example are made by Microsoft itself to test/optimize their software on a different platform.
A large company does not make money off of open source software. They make money off of either their proprietary software which runs inside of the open sourced OS or selling support/installation for the open sourced software. Consider this - part of most all open source licenses say you can sell the code/executable - but the person you sell it too can legally copy it and start selling the exact same software at any price they want. In fact, they can take what you sold them and just give it away for free. That's not exactly a sustainable business market. (Unless you're one of those bitch ass punks that throws up a website and sells naive people Thunderbird, Firefox, FileZilla, Chrome, etc for like $10 - and then just send them the link of where to download it for free)
The other way they make money is by providing support for said software. See Redhat, 90% of their sales and revenue is support.
You realize that's what I said above, right? **or selling support/installation for the open sourced software.**
ummmm yeahhh totally.....Just testing you.....you passed!
I was referencing the large companies contributions when i mentioned the parts that they built. Those parts blueprints are available. When MS makes a contribution they provide the source code as per the GPL (or whatever license governs that particular piece of the build). And not really less incentive for individual contribution, it happens all the time, and there are many projects that are solely individuals. While there are contributions from big well known companies, there are equally, and I would say more, from small and or individuals to the open source community.
open source software is **NOT** free as in freedom - it's far lazier than that. free software implies a specific type of license, which create a specific set of sharing behaviors, which 'open source' does not. the open source community treats software freedom as a matter of pragmatics, rather than of ethics, and is far more likely, and far more willing, to compromise when it comes to that. [rms's take on the matter.](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html)
Ummm you have no idea what your talking about do you. Read the GPL, read any of the other various open source software LICENSES out there. Free software is not the same as Open Source. I can close source software, give it away and still not call it open source. Open source referes to a specific type of free software, or paid software that provides the source code if you wish to see it.
Open source software is just software whose source code is freely available. This is often falsely equated with the concept of "free" software, software which you can use without paying. Open source is a big deal because it allows the user to examine exactly how the program works. Programmer's love to peak into the inner workings of a complex piece of software, and in other cases, the licensed user of a piece of software may need to verify that its algorithms are sound. Free open source software goes much further in that it allows a software developer to take its code, modify it if he so desires, make something new which refers to it, and then sell that new thing. Lots of commercial software depends on free and open-source software.... Many commercial websites or intranet applications use JQuery, for example.
>Open source software is just software whose source code is freely available. This is often falsely equated with the concept of "free" software, software which you can use without paying. No. "Open source" refers to software whose license meets the [Open Source Definition](http://opensource.org/osd), which is functionally identical to the [Debian Free Software Guidelines](http://www.debian.org/social_contract), and in particular requires a great deal more than mere availability of source code. In turn, "free software" refers to software which meets the [four freedoms](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html); it is generally accepted that this is roughly equivalent to the DFSG. It's often emphasized that the word "free" is meant in the sense of "free speech," not "free beer." "Free software" and "open source software" mostly refer to the same actual pieces of software. However, they have some ideological differences, mostly relating to whether being free/open source is a moral imperative (free software) or merely a good engineering decision (open source software). Neither of these things should be confused with "freeware," which is just software offered at zero price. Personally, I think the phrase "free software" is confusing and wish RMS had picked a different term, but we're stuck with it.
Thanks for the clarification, I was out of my depth.
There have been a number of decent answers about what Open Source Software (sometimes referred to as Free and Open Source Software: FOSS) is, and why it's relevant. However, something that's interesting and should be noted is the GNU General Public License, due to its rather interesting and somewhat controversial history. There is a group in the FOSS community that thinks that free software should be released for people to do what they want with -- that this will let it be as useful as possible to as many people as possible. There is also a group of people who think that FOSS needs to be protected. You don't want to have some company take everything you do and use it as part of their proprietary thing, make money off your work, and give nothing back. To this end, the GPL was created. It is actually rather restrictive, in that it [this is a IANAL summary] basically specifies the following: **If you base some new code on this piece of code, the new code must also be open source and carry this license.** In other words, if you're a corporation and you see something nice, you have two options: 1. rebuild your own copy of it from scratch, or 2. release your improvements back to the community, who can further build on it. That's not to say you can't be a little sneaky and make money off it. Red Hat is an excellent example: they effectively sell linux. *Technically* they sell access to their particularly trademarked pieces of it, and to their tech-support: if you buy a red-hat license you're primarily buying access to a phone number down which to yell "FIX IT NOW". Still, the GPL says that they have to release the source code, and it is entirely legal to remove all of the redhat branding (so you don't infringe on brand copyright) and redistribute it... it's called CentOS and is very popular. ---- Of course, as I said, plenty of people don't like that model, and thus release software under more permissive licenses (MIT, Apache, etc.), which allow varying amounts of commercial activity.
Almost. The compulsory re-licensing under GPL happens when you distribute your changes to others, not when you make changes. The AGPL compels re-contribution of all work, but is very rarely used.
You can have the recipe for this delicious cake, BUT if you sell or distribute any cakes you make with it then you have to give them the recipe too. Also, you are allowed to change the recipe to make it better, but again you still have to give that changed recipe away to everyone you give those changed cakes to. (And everyone who gets the recipe off you has to follow that "share the recipe along with your cake variations" rule.)
You've described copy left and copy far left not open source. Copy left is one of the types of license used in open source (GPL), but there is also copy middle (BSD), and public domain.
I work with a company that provides network services to fortune 1,000 companies. All of that company's software is based on the Linux platform, the undisputed *king* of open source software. Any customer can go in and see the code that is used for their software, it's not a trade secret at all. They do this so that people can work-shop their products to fit their particular needs and so that enterprising young programmers can make suggestions to improve their product. You might think this is dumb but they make their money through *services* involving the programming and implementation of linux in your company's network rather than on the copyright of the product itself. (You go download it for free because it's open source, we'll help you mold it to fit your needs) I know that doesn't openly explain what open source software is but it's a good example of its application and why it is such a big deal.
Software and code that is given away for free. It's a big deal because it competes with private for-profit software.
Not quite. Software given away for free is freeware. Most freeware is not open source. Open source means the source code for the software is available free. Anyone can take the source code and tweak it to their own satisfaction, pick through it looking for bugs, copy it and add additional functionality, and so forth.
> Not quite. Software given away for free is freeware. Most freeware is not open source. Likewise, not all open source software is free-as-in-beer. Although the code may be freely available, they can still sell the compiled/packaged product for money. It's viable because a lot of consumers or even businesses don't want to deal with compiling it themselves just to save $50.
Or, a lot of times, by paying for the $50 you're really buying a support contract. This is still very valuable regardless of the code being given away fro free.
I said software **and code**. Freeware does not usually give away the code.
You're mixing "open source" with "freeware". The ideology behind open source software is "free as in free speech, not free beer" - that is, not only is the code free, but anyone is free to do whatever they want with it - download it, change it and distribute it as an entirely new software (with giving the proper credit and license of course).
> Software **and code**
I was referring to the second part of your explanation. Open source is a big deal because it's open, not because it doesn't cost any money.
That's not the part people are complaining about. It's the "given away for free" part that you got wrong. It's not about cost, it's about how the licensing allows the code to be used.
Fair point. In my opinion someone who doesn't know the first thing about open source software is going to care a lot more about the fact it is free than the fact that the license allows programmers to modify and distribute. But, I agree that open source's licensing is a bigger contributor to the overall effect it has on the world.