Seminar Report Free Softwares

INTRODUCTION
We maintain a “Free software” definition to show clearly what must be true about a
particular software program for it to be considered free software. From time to time we
revise this definition to clarify it. Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To
understand the concept, We should think of free as in free speech. Free software is a matter
of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software.
More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:
 Freedom 0:
 The freedom to run the program, for any purpose.
Freedom 1:
The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your
needs. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Freedom 2:
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
Freedom 3:
 The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements
(and modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole
community benefits. Access to the source code is a precondition for
this.
A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms. Thus, you should be free to
redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, to anyone anywhere. Being free to
do these things means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for
permission.

You should also have the freedom to make modifications and use them privately in your
own work or play, without even mentioning that they exist. If you do publish your changes,
you should not be required to notify anyone in particular, or in any particular way.

The freedom to run the program means the freedom for any kind of person or organization
to use it on any kind of computer system, for any kind of overall job and purpose, without
being required to communicate about it with the developer or any other specific entity. In
this freedom, it is the user's purpose that matters, not the developer's purpose; you as a user
are free to run a program for your purposes, and if you distribute it to someone else, she is
then free to run it for her purposes, but you are not entitled to impose your purposes on her.

The freedom to redistribute copies must include binary or executable forms of the program,
as well as source code, for both modified and unmodified versions. (Distributing programs

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in runnable form is necessary for conveniently installable free operating systems.) It is ok if

there is no way to produce a binary or executable form for a certain program (since some
languages don't support that feature), but you must have the freedom to redistribute such
forms should you find or develop a way to make them.

In order for the freedoms to make changes, and to publish improved versions, to be
meaningful, you must have access to the source code of the program. Therefore,
accessibility of source code is a necessary condition for free software.

One important way to modify a program is by merging in available free subroutines and
modules. If the program's license says that you cannot merge in a suitably-licensed existing
module, such as if it requires you to be the copyright holder of any code you add, then the
license is too restrictive to qualify as free.

In order for these freedoms to be real, they must be irrevocable as long as you do nothing
wrong; if the developer of the software has the power to revoke the license, or replace it
with a different license (since this implies revoking the old license), without your doing
anything wrong to give cause, the software is not free.

However, certain kinds of rules about the manner of distributing free software are
acceptable, when they don't conflict with the central freedoms. For example, copyleft (very
simply stated) is the rule that when redistributing the program, you cannot add restrictions
to deny other people the central freedoms. This rule does not conflict with the central
freedoms; rather it protects them.

Free software does not mean non-commercial. A free program must be available for
commercial use, commercial development, and commercial distribution. Commercial
development of free software is no longer unusual; such free commercial software is very
important. You may have paid money to get copies of free software, or you may have
obtained copies at no charge. But regardless of how you got your copies, you always have
the freedom to copy and change the software.

Whether a change constitutes an improvement is a subjective matter. If your modifications

are limited, in substance, to changes that someone else considers an improvement, which is
not freedom.

However, rules about how to package a modified version are acceptable, if they don't
substantively limit your freedom to release modified versions, or your freedom to make and
use modified versions privately. Rules that if you make your version available in this way,
you must make it available in that way also can be acceptable too, on the same condition.

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(Note that such a rule still leaves you the choice of whether to publish your version at all.)
Rules that require release of source code to the users for versions that you put into public
use are also acceptable. It is also acceptable for the license to require that, if you have
distributed a modified version and a previous developer asks for a copy of it, you must
send one, or that you identify yourself on your modifications.

Sometimes government export control regulations and trade sanctions can constrain your
freedom to distribute copies of programs internationally. Software developers do not have
the power to eliminate or override these restrictions, but what they can and must do is
refuse to impose them as conditions of use of the program. In this way, the restrictions will
not affect activities and people outside the jurisdictions of these governments. Thus, free
software licenses must not require obedience to any export regulations as a condition of
any of the essential freedoms.

Most free software licenses are based on copyright, and there are limits on what kinds of
requirements can be imposed through copyright. If a copyright-based license respects
freedom in the ways described above, it is unlikely to have some other sort of problem that
we never anticipated (though this does happen occasionally). However, some free software
licenses are based on contracts, and contracts can impose a much larger range of possible
restrictions. That means there are many possible ways such a license could be unacceptably
restrictive and non-free.

We can't possibly list all the ways that might happen. If a contract-based license restricts
the user in an unusual way that copyright-based licenses cannot, and which isn't mentioned
here as legitimate, we will have to think about it, and we will probably conclude it is non-
free.

Finally, note that criteria such as those stated in this free software definition require careful
thought for their interpretation. To decide whether a specific software license qualifies as a
free software license, we judge it based on these criteria to determine whether it fits their
spirit as well as the precise words. If a license includes unconscionable restrictions, we
reject it, even if we did not anticipate the issue in these criteria. Sometimes a license
requirement raises an issue that calls for extensive thought, including discussions with a
lawyer, before we can decide if the requirement is acceptable. When we reach a conclusion
about a new issue, we often update these criteria to make it easier to see why certain
licenses do or don't qualify.

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HISTORY

The GNU operating system is a complete free software system,

upward-compatible with Unix. GNU stands for “GNU's Not Unix”. Richard Stallman made
the Initial Announcement of the GNU Project in September 1983. A longer version called
the GNU Manifesto was published in September 1985. It has been translated into several
other languages.

The name “GNU” was chosen because it met a few requirements; first, it was a recursive
acronym for “GNU's Not Unix”, second, because it was a real word

The word “free” in “free software” pertains to freedom, not price. You may or may not pay
a price to get GNU software. Either way, once you have the software you have three
specific freedoms in using it. First, the freedom to copy the program and give it away to
your friends and co-workers; second, the freedom to change the program as you wish, by
having full access to source code; third, the freedom to distribute an improved version and
thus help build the community. (If you redistribute GNU software, you may charge a fee
for the physical act of transferring a copy, or you may give away copies.)

The project to develop the GNU system is called the “GNU Project”. The GNU Project was
conceived in 1983 as a way of bringing back the cooperative spirit that prevailed in the
computing community in earlier days—to make cooperation possible once again by
removing the obstacles to cooperation imposed by the owners of proprietary software.

In 1971, when Richard Stallman started his career at MIT, he worked in a group which
used free software exclusively. Even computer companies often distributed free software.
Programmers were free to cooperate with each other, and often did.

By the 1980s, almost all software was proprietary, which means that it had owners who
forbid and prevent cooperation by users. This made the GNU Project necessary.

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Every computer user needs an operating system; if there is no free operating system, then
you can't even get started using a computer without resorting to proprietary software. So
the first item on the free software agenda obviously had to be a free operating system.

We decided to make the operating system compatible with Unix because the overall design
was already proven and portable, and because compatibility makes it easy for Unix users to
switch from Unix to GNU.

An Unix-like operating system is much more than a kernel; it also includes compilers,
editors, text formatters, mail software, and many other things. Thus, writing a whole
operating system is a very large job. We started in January 1984. It took many years. The
Free Software Foundation was founded in October 1985, initially to raise funds to help
develop GNU.

By 1990 we had either found or written all the major components except one the kernel.
Then Linux, a Unix-like kernel, was developed by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and made free
software in 1992. Combining Linux with the almost-complete GNU system resulted in a
complete operating system: the GNU/Linux system. Estimates are that tens of millions of
people now use GNU/Linux systems, typically via distributions such as Slackware, Debian,
Red Hat, and others.

(The principal version of Linux now contains non-free firmware “blobs”. Free software
activists now maintain a modified free version of Linux.)

However, the GNU Project is not limited to the core operating system. We aim to provide a
whole spectrum of software, whatever many users want to have. This includes application
software. See the Free Software Directory for a catalogue of free software application
programs.

We also want to provide software for users who are not computer experts. Therefore we
developed a graphical desktop (called GNOME) to help beginners use the GNU system.

We also want to provide games and other recreations. Plenty of free games are already
available.

How far can free software go? There are no limits, except when laws such as the patent
system prohibit free software entirely. The ultimate goal is to provide free software to do
the entire jobs computer users want to do—and thus make proprietary software obsolete.

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GNU/LINUX DISTRIBUTIONS

REDHAT

Red Hat is associated primarily with its enterprise operating system Red Hat Enterprise
Linux and the acquisition of open-source enterprise middleware vendor JBoss. Red Hat
provides operating-system platforms along with middleware, applications, and
management solutions, as well as support, training, and consulting services.
Red Hat sponsors the Fedora Project, a community-supported open-source project which
aims to promote the rapid progress of free and open-source software and content. Fedora
makes rapid innovation possible using open processes and public forums.

The Fedora Project Board, which comprises community leaders and Red Hat members,
leads the project and steers the direction of the project and of Fedora, theLinux
distribution it develops. Red Hat employees work with the code alongside community
members, and many innovations within the Fedora Project make their way into new
releases of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

SuSE

SuSE was founded in late 1992 as a UNIX consulting group, which among other things
regularly released software packages that included SLS and Slackware, and printed
UNIX/Linux manuals. S.u.S.E is an acronym for the German phrase
"Software- und System-Entwicklung" ("Software and system development"). They
released the first CD version of SLS/Slackware in 1994, under the name S.u.S.E Linux 1.0.
It later integrated with the Jurix distribution of Florian La Roche, to release the first really
unique S.u.S.E Linux 4.2 in 1996. Over time, SuSE Linux incorporated many aspects
of Red Hat Linux (e.g., using RPMs and /etc/sysconfig).

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MANDRIVA
Mandriva S.A. is a publicly traded (symbol:MDKFF) Linux and open source software
company with its headquarters in Paris, France and development center in Curitiba, Brazil.
Mandriva, S.A. is the creator and maintainer of Mandriva Linux, describing itself as a
"project initiator and a skills organizer in the Open Source arena", and a founding member
of the Desktop Linux Consortium.

Mandriva, S.A. began as MandrakeSoft in 1998. It currently has about 130 employees (80
of whom are engineers) and has offices in France, the USA, and Brazil. The company sells
its products in more than 140 countries and estimates the number of Mandriva Linux users
to be in the 6-to-8 million ranges. MandrakeSoft was forced to change its name as a result
of losing litigation to the Hearst Corporation over the name Mandrake. The litigation
concluded in February 2004, and appeals expired in early 2005. The litigation arose
because of Hearst Corporation's claim to the name "Mandrake", inspired by the
comic Mandrake the Magician; forcing MandrakeSoft to change its name. In 2005,
MandrakeSoft acquired the assets of Lycoris, and purchased Connectives. As a result of the
forced name change, the name Mandriva was selected to reflect the combination of
MandrakeSoft and Conectiva. On 2008-01-16, Mandriva and Turbolinux announced a
partnership to create a lab named Mambo-Labs, to share resources and technology to
release a common base system for both companies Linux distributions.

DEBIAN

Debian is a computer operating system composed entirely of free and open source
software. The primary form, Debian GNU/Linux, is a popular and influential distribution.
Debian is known for strict adherence to the UNIX and free software philosophies as well as
using open development and testing processes. Debian can be used as a desktop as well
as server operating system.

The Debian Project is governed by the Debian Constitution and the Social Contract which
set out the governance structure of the project as well as explicitly stating that the goal of
the project is the development of a free operating system. Debian is developed by over one
thousand volunteers from around the world and supported by donations through SPI, a non-
profit umbrella organization for various free software projects.

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SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS
There are plenty of office suites as well as a whole host of other productivity software
freely available for GNU/Linux. Most of these provide the average user with all the
functionality they need from a word processor, desktop database or spread sheet
application. Some will even open documents created in Microsoft Word or Excel with
varying degrees of success. There will be some issues when it comes to documents
containing Macros, but then even Microsoft Office can have issues running macros created
in another version.
OFFICE SUITES
OpenOffice has had the most exposure out of all the freely available Office suites, as it is
available on all the popular platforms and is available as Star Office as a boxed product
with support from Sun Microsystems. It is also available as Novell OpenOffice which
includes a Microsoft OpenXML translator, allowing it to open Microsoft Office 2007 files.
It saves its files in the ISO standard OpenDocument Format (ODF) which is supported by a
number of office applications. It is available directly from openoffice.org which includes a
windows application style installer. It is also available as an automatic update from the
sites of the popular Linux distributions.
KOffice is an office suite from KDE. Like OpenOffice it uses the OpenDocument format
for saving its files so you can share your files with users of OpenOffice. For distributions
that use KDE as default, this will most likely be preinstalled. If that isn’t the case, you can
get it using your distributions auto updated facilities.
Gnome Office isn’t really a suite like the two mentioned above in the sense that you do not
download and install one single package. It is a collection of applications such as Word
Processors and Spreadsheet software you install individually. These should all however be
available from your auto-update facilities in the same manner as KOffice.
INDIVIDUAL APPLICATIONS
Most of the applications listed below are available as part of the office suites mentioned
above. In addition to the typical office software such as word processing, spreadsheets and
presentation packages, I’ve included a few others that can also be classified as productivity
software.
WORD PROCESSORS
Most people use just a tiny subset of the features provided by word processor applications.
If you are among this majority who use your word processor just for writing letters or
typical documents you could easily switch to a word processor you are comfortable with
and which doesn’t cost you a penny to upgrade.
Writer (OpenOffice.org) is simple to use and has a user interface similar to that of pre-
2007 Microsoft Word. It has all the features a typical user would expect from a word
processor. It supports PDF export which is great for sending read-only copies of your
document around or placing them online for download. It flawlessly handles documents

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spanning over a thousand pages so is great for the budding authors out there, something
older versions of Microsoft Word found difficult to handle.
OpenOffice.org includes Math and FontWork which are quite useful for inserting text
objects that cannot easily be typed in directly. Math is an mathematical formulae editor
(like Microsoft Equation Editor) which can export to PDF or MathML as well as being
used directly from the OpenOffice applications. FontWork is a 2D and 3D text designer
similar to WordArt found in Microsoft Office.
KWord (KOffice) is word processor which makes complex layouts easy using its frames
concept. You can create frames within frames and manage the layout as you would in a
Desktop Publishing Program. However, it didn’t feel as intuitive as OpenOffice Writer, and
it would also seem unfamiliar to regular Microsoft Word users. But having said that, even
as a first time user you would not have any problems just starting it up and writing a letter
you need to quickly print out.
Abiword is a lightweight word processor that is supplied with the gnome desktop
environment. It is still perfectly adequate for typical use, but does not seem to have a
professional appearance. Also it took quite long to embed images, that appeared
instantaneously in the other two. It works very well on low-end/old computers and with its
PDF export feature, you can share your documents with a wide audience. If you need the
files to be edited by a number of other people using other software or platform, you may be
a little less successful as it doesn’t have full support for the OpenDocument Format (ODF).
MUSIC
For playing music XMMS is one of my favourites. It is a lightweight and very simple to
use player that resembles Winamp 2. It has a graphic equaliser to adjust the sound and also
lets you control your music library using playlists. Amongst various other formats it can
play mp3, aac, ogg and flac files. You can add support for other music formats,
visualisation and sound enhancement features by downloading various plug-ins.
Amarok is included with KDE, and has a more modern look. It has the general features
available in XMMS but additionally can synchronise with various digital music players
including iPod, iRiver, Zen, as well as generic mp3 players that let you copy the music
without special software. It also has support for last.fm and podcasts.
The upcoming Amarok 2 will have integration with online music stores such as iTunes

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Songbird

Songbird is another popular player with a graphical interface familiar to iTunes users. It
plays the same popular file formats supported by XMMS and Amaraok. It can be used as a
web browser where any music links on the web pages appear as playable files. It supports
GreaseMonkey scripts (which will be familiar to many Firefox users) for customising the
player. It also has many add-ons for extra functionality e.g. synchronising with your iPod
or other mp3 player.
MOVIES AND TV
Xine is a very popular DVD player for linux, as it can play CSS protected DVDs provided
that libdvdcss is installed. It can also play many other video formats including DV,
MPEG4, DivX, WMV 7/8, QuickTime etc.
Ogle is another DVD player and it was the first to have support for DVD menus in linux.
Both Xine and Ogle support DVD menus, subtitles and multiple languages.

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VideoLan Client (VLC) is a player that supports a wide variety of video formats including
the popular ones listed above, and it has a nice graphical user interface. As well as
supporting these formats and DVD playback, VLC can be used to watch TV on your
computer provided you have a supported TV card/USB dongle and the drivers for it are
correctly installed.
MPlayer is another popular player that can play many proprietary video formats as well as
the ones listed above. Support for these formats would not be enabled out of the box in
most systems. You would need to get the codecs for the video formats you want and
compile mplayer with the correct settings.
However, mplayer is useful to have installed as there is a plugin available for web browsers
such as Firefox which allow you to watch online video of various formats.
There are many sites on the web (youtube being the prime example) which use Flash Video
(flv) movies. For these just the flash plugin for your browser would be enough to watch the
videos.
WEB BROWSERS
There is actually quite a wide range of web browser options available in gnu/linux. First
lets have a look at Firefox. Pretty much everyone’s heard of it as it’s also available in
windows. The behaviour of this browser in linux is exactly the same as it is in windows.
The same add-ons are available and the pages render in exactly the same way.
The other two main browsers included in GNU/linux distributions are Epiphany and
Konqueror. They are the default browsers supplied with Gnome and KDE respectively,
which are the two of the most popular desktop environments today.
Konqueror, the KDE browser, uses the KHTML browser engine to render web pages.
Apple used KHTML as the basis for developing Webkit, which they use as the rendering
engine for their Safari Web Browser. Web pages look pretty much the same in Konqueror
as they do in Safari. Konqueror also acts as the file browser to make the web feel more
integrated with Desktop Environment.
Epiphany, the gnome browser, uses Mozilla’s gecko engine by default, which means
pages in this will look just the way they do in firefox. It can, however, be configured to use
Webkit to render pages, which would make it more like Konquerer and Safari when it
comes to page rendering.
These are the most popular browsers, but there are a few others available.
Mozilla’s Seamonkeyis based on the same gecko browser technology as Firefox, but it
includes an email and chat client. Users of Opera would be glad to know that it is also
available in gnu/linux. Another browser deserving mention is Galeon. It is a very fast and
lightweight browser, and is perfect if you have a relatively old computer.
All of the above browsers support tabbed browsing. They support the typical plugins such
as flash and java applets. For general online videos, you should get the mplayer plugin.

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EMAIL CLIENTS
As I’ve already mentioned, Mozilla Seamonkey is a complete web suite and includes an
email client. This can handle POP3 and IMAP email.
If you want just an email client you can use Thunderbird or Sylpheed. Sylpheed is a very
lightweight email client. It doesn’t need a lot of memory to run and feels more responsive
than Thunderbird. However, it lacks the add-on feature and html emails. It is great for low
powered or old computers.
Thunderbird, from Mozilla, is a feature rich client with excellent HTML email rendering
with spam protection mechanisms (such as not loading images by default). It has an add-on
architecture that allows third party tools to to provide extra features, such as adding
calendar or email encryption.
They both support the standard POP3 and IMAP protocols, and contain rule based email
filtering similar to outlook. They also offer adaptive junk mail protection. In addition to
these, thunderbird also has googlemail support.
The Gnome desktop environment includes an email client called Evolution, while KDE
includesKMail as part of its Kontact Personal Information suite. Evolution has the ability
communicate with Microsoft Exchange Server as long as the server has Outlook Web
Access enabled. This allows you to have desktop computers in your office running
gnu/linux even if you have windows based servers, making it ideal for the corporate
environment.
INSTANT MESSENGERS & VIDEO CONFERENCING
The most popular instant messaging clients are Pidgin and Kopete. Both of these support
multiple protocols including Yahoo, MSN, Jabber/Googletalk and AIM et al. If you are
looking for just a Jabber/googletalk client, you can use Psi. Ekiga is a NetMeeting
(SIP and H.323) compatible video conferencing application, meaning you can use it with
people on Window Live Messenger. It integrates with Gnome Evolution, so you can use
the same set of contacts in both applications. If you are a skype user, that is also available
in gnu/linux.
Free Software purist would have noticed that I’ve included non-libre software (i.e. Opera
and Skype), but they are still free and since this article is intended for people that aren’t
very familiar with linux, I think it is fair to let them know they can use many of the same
products they use in Windows. The rest are all freely available open source software,
distributed under various free software licenses.

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GNU-GPL

The GNU General Public License (GNUGPL or simply GPL)

is a widely used free software license, originally written
by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. The GPL is the most
popular and well-known example of the type of strong
copyleft license that requires derived works to be available
under the same copyleft. Under this philosophy, the GPL is said to grant the recipients of
a computer program the rights of the free software definition and uses copyleft to ensure
the freedoms are preserved, even when the work is changed or added to. This is in
distinction to permissive free software licences, of which the BSD licences are the standard
examples.

The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is a modified, more permissive, version
of the GPL, originally intended for some software libraries. There is also a GNU Free
Documentation License, which was originally intended for use with documentation for
GNU software, but has also been adopted for other uses, such as the Wikipedia project.

The Affero General Public License (GNU AGPL) is a similar license with a focus on
networking server software. The GNU AGPL is similar to the GNU General Public
License, except that it additionally covers the use of the software over a computer network,
requiring that the complete source code be made available to any network user of the
AGPLed work, for example a web application. The Free Software Foundation recommends
that this license is considered for any software that will commonly be run over the network.

Versions of GPL

Version 1

Version 1 of the GNU GPL, released in January 1989, prevented what were then the two
main ways that software distributors restricted the freedoms that define free software. The
first problem was that distributors may publish binary files only – executable, but not
readable or modifiable by humans. To prevent this, GPLv1 said that any vendor
distributing binaries must also make the human readable source code available under the
same licensing terms.

The second problem was the distributors might add additional restrictions, either by adding
restrictions to the licence, or by combining the software with other software which had

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other restrictions on its distribution. If this was done, then the union of the two sets of
restrictions would apply to the combined work, thus unacceptable restrictions could be
added. To prevent this, GPLv1 said that modified versions, as a whole, had to be
distributed under the terms in GPLv1. Therefore, software distributed under the terms of
GPLv1 could be combined with software under more permissive terms, as this would not
change the terms under which the whole could be distributed, but software distributed
under GPLv1 could not be combined with software distributed under a more restrictive
licence, as this would conflict with the requirement that the whole be distributable under
the terms of GPLv1.
Version 2

According to Richard Stallman, the major change in GPLv2 was the "Liberty or Death"
clause, as he calls it — Section 7. This section says that if someone has restrictions
imposed that prevent him or her from distributing GPL-covered software in a way that
respects other users' freedom (for example, if a legal ruling states that he or she can only
distribute the software in binary form), he or she cannot distribute it at all.

By 1990, it was becoming apparent that a less restrictive licence would be strategically
useful for some software libraries; when version 2 of the GPL (GPLv2) was released in
June 1991, therefore, a second licence — the Library General Public License (LGPL) was
introduced at the same time and numbered with version 2 to show that both were
complementary. The version numbers diverged in 1999 when version 2.1 of the LGPL was
released, which renamed it the GNU Lesser General Public License to reflect its place in
the GNU philosophy.
Version 3

In late 2005, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) announced work on version 3 of the GPL
(GPLv3). On January 16, 2006, the first "discussion draft" of GPLv3 was published, and
the public consultation began. The public consultation was originally planned for nine to
fifteen months but finally stretched to eighteen months with four drafts being published.
The official GPLv3 was released by FSF on June 29, 2007. GPLv3 was written by Richard
Stallman, with legal counsel from Eben Moglenand Software Freedom Law Center.

According to Stallman, the most important changes are in relation to software patents, free
software licence compatibility, the definition of "source code", and hardware restrictions
on software modification ("tivoization"). Other changes relate to internationalisation, how
license violations are handled, and how additional permissions can be granted by the
copyright holder.

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Other notable changes include allowing authors to add certain additional conditions or
requirements to their contributions. One of those new optional requirements, sometimes
referred to as the Affero clause, is intended to fulfill a request regarding software as a
service; the permitting addition of this requirement makes GPLv3 compatible with the
Affero General Public License.

The public consultation process was coordinated by the Free Software Foundation with
assistance from Software Freedom Law Center, Free Software Foundation Europe, and
other free software groups. Comments were collected from the public via the gplv3.fsf.org
web portal. That portal runs purpose-written software called stet. These comments were
passed to four committees comprising approximately 130 people, including supporters and
detractors of FSF's goals. Those committees researched the comments submitted by the
public and passed their summaries to Stallman for a decision on what the licence would do.

During the public consultation process, 962 comments were submitted for the first
draft. By the end, a total of 2,636 comments had been submitted.

The third draft was released on March 28, 2007. This draft included language intended to
prevent patent cross-licences like the controversial Microsoft-Novell patent agreement and
restricts the anti-tivoization clauses to a legal definition of a "User" or "consumer product."
It also explicitly removed the section on "Geographical Limitations", whose probable
removal had been announced at the launch of the public consultation.

The fourth discussion draft, which was the last, was released on May 31, 2007. It
introduced Apache License compatibility, clarified the role of outside contractors, and
made an exception to avoid the perceived problems of a Microsoft-Novell style agreement,
saying in section 11 paragraph 6 that
You may not convey a covered work if you are a party to an arrangement with a third party
that is in the business of distributing software, under which you make payment to the third
party based on the extent of your activity of conveying the work, and under which the third
party grants, to any of the parties who would receive the covered work from you, a
discriminatory patent licence [...]
This aims to make future such deals ineffective. The licence is also meant to cause
Microsoft to extend the patent licences it grants to Novell customers for the use of GPLv3
software to all users of that GPLv3 software; this is possible only if Microsoft is legally a
"conveyor" of the GPLv3 software.

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Others, notably some high-profile developers of the Linux kernel, commented to the mass
media and made public statements about their objections to parts of discussion drafts 1 and
2.

Terms and conditions

The terms and conditions of the GPL are available to anybody receiving a copy of the work
that has a GPL applied to it ("the licensee"). Any licensee who adheres to the terms and
conditions is given permission to modify the work, as well as to copy and redistribute the
work or any derivative version. The licensee is allowed to charge a fee for this service, or
do this free of charge. This latter point distinguishes the GPL from software licenses that
prohibit commercial redistribution. The FSF argues that free software should not place
restrictions on commercial use, and the GPL explicitly states that GPL works may be sold
at any price.

The GPL additionally states that a distributor may not impose "further restrictions on the
rights granted by the GPL". This forbids activities such as distributing of the software
under a non-disclosure agreement or contract. Distributors under the GPL also grant a
license for any of their patents practiced by the software, to practice those patents in GPL
software.

Section three of the license requires that programs distributed as pre-compiled binaries are
accompanied by a copy of the source code, a written offer to distribute the source code via
the same mechanism as the pre-compiled binary or the written offer to obtain the source
code that you got when you received the pre-compiled binary under the GPL.

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COPYLEFT
Copyleft is a general method for making a program or other work free, and
requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free as well.

The simplest way to make a program free software is to put it in the public domain,
uncopyrighted. This allows people to share the program and their improvements, if they are
so minded. But it also allows uncooperative people to convert the program into proprietary
software. They can make changes, many or few, and distribute the result as a proprietary
product. People who receive the program in that modified form do not have the freedom
that the original author gave them; the middleman has stripped it away.

In the GNU project, our aim is to give all users the freedom to redistribute and change
GNU software. If middlemen could strip off the freedom, we might have many users, but
those users would not have freedom. So instead of putting GNU software in the public
domain, we “copyleft” it. Copyleft says that anyone who redistributes the software, with or
without changes, must pass along the freedom to further copy and change it. Copyleft
guarantees that every user has freedom.

Copyleft also provides an incentive for other programmers to add to free software.
Important free programs such as the GNU C++ compiler exist only because of this.

Copyleft also helps programmers who want to contribute improvements to free software
get permission to do that. These programmers often work for companies or universities that
would do almost anything to get more money. A programmer may want to contribute her
changes to the community, but her employer may want to turn the changes into a
proprietary software product.

When we explain to the employer that it is illegal to distribute the improved version except
as free software, the employer usually decides to release it as free software rather than
throw it away.

To copyleft a program, we first state that it is copyrighted; then we add distribution terms,
which are a legal instrument that gives everyone the rights to use, modify, and redistribute
the program's code or any program derived from it but only if the distribution terms are
unchanged. Thus, the code and the freedoms become legally inseparable.

Proprietary software developers use copyright to take away the users' freedom; we use
copyright to guarantee their freedom. That's why we reverse the name, changing
“copyright” into “copyleft.”

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Copyleft is a way of using of the copyright on the program. It doesn't mean abandoning the
copyright; in fact, doing so would make copyleft impossible. The word “left” in “copyleft”
is not a reference to the verb “to leave” — only to the direction which is the inverse of
“right”.

Copyleft is a general concept, and you can't use a general concept directly; you can only
use a specific implementation of the concept. In the GNU Project, the specific distribution
terms that we use for most software are contained in the GNU General Public License. The
GNU General Public License is often called the GNU GPL for short.

GNU/LINUX vs WINDOWS
FLAVORS

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Both Windows and Linux come in many flavors. All the flavors of Windows come from
Microsoft, the various distributions of Linux come from different companies
(i.e. Linspire, Red Hat, SuSE, Ubuntu, Xandros, Knoppix, Slackware, Lycoris, etc. ).
Windows has two main lines. The older flavors are referred to as "Win9x" and consist of
Windows 95, 98, 98SE and Me. The newer flavors are referred to as "NT class" and consist
of Windows NT3, NT4, 2000, XP and Vista. Going back in time, Windows 3.x preceded
Windows 95 by a few years. And before that, there were earlier versons of Windows, but
they were not popular. Microsoft no longer supports Windows NT3, NT4, all the 9x
versions and of course anything older. Support for Windows 2000 is partial (as of April
2007).
The flavors of Linux are referred to as distributions (often shortened to "distros"). All the
Linux distributions released around the same time frame will use the same kernel (the guts
of the Operating System). They differ in the add-on software provided, GUI, install
process, price, documentation and technical support. Both Linux and Windows come in
desktop and server editions.
There may be too many distributions of Linux, it's possible that this is hurting Linux in the
marketplace. It could be that the lack of a Linux distro from a major computer company is
also hurting it in the marketplace. IBM is a big Linux backer but does not have their own
branded distribution. Currently there seem to be many nice things said about the Ubuntu
distribution.
Linux is customizable in a way that Windows is not. For one, the user interface, while
similar in concept, varies in detail from distribution to distribution. For example, the task
bar may default to being on the top or the bottom. Also, there are many special purpose
versions of Linux above and beyond the full blown distributions described above. For
example, NASLite is a version of Linux that runs off a single floppy disk (since revised to
also boot from a CD) and converts an old computer into a file server. This ultra small
edition of Linux is capable of networking, file sharing and being a web server.
GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE
Both Linux and Windows provide a GUI and a command line interface. The Windows GUI
has changed from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 (drastically) to Windows 2000 (slightly) to
Windows XP (fairly large) and is slated to change again with the next version of Windows,
the one that will replace XP. Windows XP has a themes feature that offers some
customization of the look and feel of the GUI.
Linux typically provides two GUIs, KDE and Gnome. See a screen shot
of Lycoris and Lindows in action from the Wal-Mart web site. Thelynucs.org web site has
examples of many substantially different Linux GUIs. Of the major Linux distributions,
Lindows has made their user interface look more like Windows than the others. Here is
a screen shot of Linux made to look like Windows XP. Then too, there isXPde for
Linux which really makes Linux look like Windows. Quoting their web site "It's a desktop
environment (XPde) and a window manager (XPwm) for Linux. It tries to make easier for
Windows XP users to use a Linux box."
Linux GUI is optional while the Windows GUI is an integral component of the OS. The
speed, efficiency and reliability are all increased by running a server instance of Linux

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Seminar Report Free Softwares

without a GUI, something that server versions of Windows can not do. In the same article
he points out that the detached nature of the Linux GUI makes remote control and remote
administration of a Linux computer simpler and more natural than a Windows computer.
TEXT MODE INTERFACE
This is also known as a command interpreter. Windows users sometimes call it a DOS
prompt. Linux users refer to it as a shell. Each version of Windows has a single command
interpreter, but the different flavors of Windows have different interpreters. In general, the
command interpreters in the Windows 9x series are very similar to each other and the NT
class versions of Windows (NT, 2000, XP) also have similar command interpreters. There
are however differences between a Windows 9x command interpreter and one in an NT
class flavor of Windows. Linux, like all versions of Unix, supports multiple command
interpreters, but it usually uses one called BASH (Bourne Again Shell). Others are the
Korn shell, the Bourne shell, ash and the C shell (pun, no doubt, intended).
COST
For desktop or home use, Linux is very cheap or free, Windows is expensive. For server
use, Linux is very cheap compared to Windows. Microsoft allows a single copy of
Windows to be used on only one computer. Starting with Windows XP, they use software
to enforce this rule (Windows Product Activation at first, later Genuine Windows). In
contrast, once you have purchased Linux, you can run it on any number of computers for
no additional charge.
As of January 2005, the upgrade edition of Windows XP Home Edition sells for about
$100, XP Professional is about $200. The "full" version of XP Home is about $200, the full
version of XP Professional is $300. Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition with 10 Client
licenses is about $1,100. Because they save $100 or so on the cost of Windows, Wal-Mart
can sell a Linux based computer for $200 (without a monitor) whereas their cheapest
Windows XP computer is $300 (as of January 2005).
The irony here is that Windows rose to dominance, way back when, in large part by
undercutting the competition (Macs) on cost. Now Linux may do the same thing to
Windows.
You can buy a Linux book and get the operating system included with the book for free.
You can also download Linux for free from each of the Linux vendors (assuming your
Internet connection is fast enough for a 600 MB file and you have a CD burner) or
fromwww.linuxiso.org. Both these options however, come without technical support. All
versions of the Ubuntu distribution are free.
You can purchase assorted distributions of Linux in a box with a CD and manuals and
technical support for around $40 to $80 (some distributions may be less, others may be
more). Regular updates and ongoing support range from $35 a year for a desktop version of
Linux to $1,500 for a high-end server version. August 2004 Red Hat started selling a
desktop oriented version of Linux for under $6 per user per year.
After the initial cost (or lack thereof) of obtaining software, there is the ongoing cost of its
care and feeding. In October 2002, Computer World magazine quoted the chief technology
architect at Merrill Lynch & Co. in New York as saying that "the cost of running Linux is

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Seminar Report Free Softwares

typically a tenth of the cost of Unix and Microsoft alternatives." The head technician at oil
company Amerada Hess manages 400 Linux servers by himself. He was quoted
as saying "It takes fewer people to manage the Linux machines than Windows
machines." Microsoft commissioned a study that (no surprise) found it cheaper to maintain
Windows than Linux. However, one of the authors of the study accused Microsoft
of stacking the deck by selecting scenarios that are more expensive to maintain on Linux.

CONCLUSION

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Free software is often the most reliable software, and in many cases has the best

performance. Free software often has far better security, perhaps due to the possibility of

worldwide review. Free Software options should be carefully considered any time software

or computer hardware is needed. Organizations should ensure that their policies encourage,

and not discourage, examining Free Software approaches when they need software.

ABSTRACT

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Seminar Report Free Softwares

Free Software(FS) has risen to great prominence. Briefly, FS programs are programs whose
licenses give users the freedom to run the program for any purpose, to study and modify
the program, and to redistribute copies of either the original or modified program (without
having to pay royalties to previous developers).This is an excellent look at the some of the
reasons why any organization should consider the use of [OSS/FS]. It does a wonderful job
of bringing the facts and figures of real usage comparisons and how the figures are arrived
at. No FUD or paid for industry reports here, just the facts”. This paper been referenced by
many other works, too. It’s my hope that my presentation will be useful to all.

Dept of PCA -23- Government College Karyavattom