My understanding of Open Source

The Wang open-source incident fired the Open-Source topic again. But there are too many misunderstandings about open-source systems (open-source systems in the broad sense, such as FS and OSS.

In practice, there are three aspects related to Open Source: Business Software, free software, and open source software, (OSS ). The fundamental difference between them is not whether or not they are charged-this is the biggest misunderstanding of open source in China.

In fact, the fundamental difference between the three lies in license.

Commercial software uses commercial license, which takes the interests of software vendors as the first priority and basically does not consider the interests of users. If you don't believe it, check the commercial software license on your own. In fact, I suspect that most people have never seen the license of their own software, I even doubt that those who use fud open-source software are hard to find even genuine commercial software.

Free software uses GPL to maximize user freedom. This freedom is manifested in the fact that users can freely use the software, but also freely distribute and modify the software. However, because of the derivation of GPL (that is to say, GPL is also required for software derived from GPL), after the user modifies and resends the Free Software, the user becomes one of the authors, therefore, GPL protects the author's rights and interests for the user's freedom.

OSS is similar to free software, but its license is more loose and not limited to GPL. However, one thing these licenses have in common is open source code, which gives users more freedom to use and gives users the freedom to choose. BTW: I personally prefer oss. I once wrote "Freedom of Choice" to talk about this. However, he once talked to Ling Hu about the force derivation of GPL, which guarantees the continuous development of free software.

In this case, we can clearly see that open-source software does not exclude business.

No matter whether it is free software or OSS, you can obtain commercial benefits by providing value-added services on its basis-as long as it does not violate its license. Therefore, you can simply copy the downloaded Linux file into a light disk and sell it. If you modify the downloaded content, you must include the modified source code when releasing the file. In fact, without violating the license, you can use open-source software for all the business activities you can think.

However, there is a difference between free software and OSS in their attitudes towards commercial software.

For Free Software, commercial software is something in another world. The two are independent and independent. They do not allow commercial software to enter the free software system, the results of free software are also prohibited from entering commercial software (because commercial software certainly does not use GPL, which violates the GPL derived provisions ).

However, OSS is much loose and generally has no restriction on derivation. Many Open-Source Licenses allow their derived results not to be open-source, that is, they are allowed to enter commercial software. In this sense, OSS is not only the enemy of commercial software, but also a necessary and useful supplement.

In contrast, commercial software loses its monopoly benefits due to the existence of open-source software. Monopoly here does not necessarily mean absolute monopoly, but also "Monopoly Competition" in the economic sense ". Monopoly Competition refers to adding incompatible features to products, adding substitution barriers to users, and realizing factual monopoly to a certain extent. The so-called addition of incompatible features is like incomplete support for general standards-for example, the so-called POSIX compatibility for windows, and non-standard extension for general standards-for example, ie non-standard extension for W3C standards.

The advantage of ridge break is that users have no other choice. I am not doing well, I am selling more expensive, and I can mix well. However, the emergence of open-source software gives users more and better choices, which poses a threat to them. Therefore, fud open-source software is required. But I think there is no way out. The only way for commercial software to survive in such a competitive environment is to make your work better than open-source software! I don't have to worry about commercial software that died because of the emergence of open-source software, because it is completely self-defeating.

Open source is an attitude for both users and developers. As Ling Hu said:

Open source is not a lofty undertaking. It is actually a kind of fud. Business is business, open source is open source. It doesn't mean that open source is more remarkable than business, or that business is more remarkable than open source.
The best mentality is not to care about any commercial things. I joined because I was happy. How others treat my things is what others do. If you really don't want to be used by commercial companies, use GPL. Let's talk about open source and business together, and look at Open Source with merit. What do you think is uncomfortable. If you consider utilitarian issues, do not participate in open-source, boring.

Let's end with another point: Do not confuse open-source software with pirated software.

As mentioned above, open-source software also has a license. A violation of license is a piracy of open-source software. For example, the use of free software code in commercial software is a piracy of open-source software. In terms of anti-piracy, the positions of all types of software should be consistent.