The private sector
There is increasing awareness and uptake of OSS within the private sector, with OSS and proprietary software becoming increasingly interwoven5. Major corporations such as IBM believe it enables them to make use of a worldwide community of developers to improve their products and services. Some industry commentators suggest that OSS will lead to a more competitive software industry. Currently over 67% of web-servers run open source software called Apache6. The majority of websites and email systems run on OSS. Worldwide, around 30% of infrastructural computers run GNU/Linux, an open source operating system. However, use of OSS on the desktop is more limited: over 96% of desktop computers still use Microsoft Windows. OSS has inspired new portable device projects, such as the ‘Simputer’. This is a small, inexpensive, handheld computer, intended to bring computing power to India and other emerging economies.
Open source software in government
Governments’ interest in OSS is increasing, due to their reliance on sophisticated software. The UK Office of Government Commerce released a series of case studies in October 2004 outlining how OSS has been used in the public sector (Box 3). However, UK parliamentary responses to questions on the use of OSS in government show that uptake is still limited7. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister is funding the ‘Open Source Academy’ project. This is intended to overcome barriers to uptake of OSS in local government such as lack of information, skills, confidence and lack of suitable products.
Policy on use of OSS within government is outlined in the updated e-Government Unit’s policy document released in October 20049. Key points are:
• reaffirmation of the UK Government’s commitment to ‘procurement neutrality’: OSS solutions should be considered alongside proprietary ones in IT procurements;
• contracts will be awarded on a case-by-case basis, based on value for money. The UK Government will seek to avoid ‘lock-in’ to proprietary IT products.
Research licensingThe updated government OSS policy now includes policy on the exploitation of software arising from government funded research projects. There is growing debate over whether such software should be released under open source licences. Government policy states that the ‘exploitation route’ for such software (that is whether it is released commercially, within the research community, or as OSS) should be chosen to maximise returns on public investment. Decisions should be made at the discretion of the researchers and institutions involved. Some academics and open source groups have proposed dual-licensing as means of getting the benefits of a proprietary and open source licence.
The UK Particle Physics Grid project is an example of a research project using OSS. Grid computing, seen as part of the next-generation Internet, is a massive new area of information systems development. The UK Particle Physics Grid project relies on internationally developed OSS, ‘Globus’ and ‘Condor’. By building on the work of existing international communities, the project has saved significant amounts of development work and money.
Other usage
Advocates of OSS argue that, in principle, the OSS model allows software to be developed for minority markets, that is, product development can be need-driven rather than market-driven. In practice, it is not clear there is such a clear distinction between the two models: for example both GNU/Linux and Windows now have versions in a number of minority languages.
Open Source Software Legal issues
Copyright
Software is protected using the copyright system. Relying on the same protection as on books, music or film, the buyer of software is licensed the use of a copy of the product. Proprietary software is normally distributed under an ‘all rights reserved’ licence where the rights to exploit the software are held by the copyright owner. Open source relies on copyright law to give legal backing to the licences under which it is released (Open Source Software Part I).
Open Source Software Software patents
Whereas copyright protects software code from being copied, patents can be used to prevent the innovative solution or effects of the software from being copied (what it does and how it does it). Government grants the patent holder rights, in return for sharing the information on how the technical result was achieved. The extent to which software should be patentable is controversial. A key issue is whether the software has a ‘technical effect’ (for example controls the function of a robot arm) or is used for a ‘business process’ (no technical effect).
In the US, it is possible to patent software used for business processes. Amazon, for example, has patented the ‘1-click’ process, which gives a monopoly on ‘clicking once’ using a mouse to buy a product from a website. As all websites are built on the idea of clicking links, patent experts have argued that these broad ‘business process’ patents can be destructive by granting a monopoly on standard processes. This affects open source developers because, when writing a piece of software, they may not realise that the software technique is patented.
Currently, ‘business processes’ are not patentable in the EU. There is widespread debate over the ‘EU Computer Implemented Inventions Directive’, awaiting its second reading in the European Parliament. Under this directive, software will be patentable only if it has a technical effect. However, there are concerns that this may lead to widespread granting of patents, because it is hard to make the distinction between whether software is used for a business process or for a technical effect.
Developers and users of OSS, and some small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), have voiced concerns over the potential negative impact of the directive on the competitiveness of the software industry. Proponents say software patenting is already possible in the EU; the directive will not allow patents in new areas. The UK Patent Office says the directive aims to ‘clarify the situation’ and to ‘prevent a drift towards the more liberal regime of the US’. Moreover, it is pointed out that business processes cannot be patented under the directive. Proponents (including some SMEs) also argue that patent protection is needed to encourage innovation and investment in research and development.
• Ministry of Defence (MoD) Defence Academy: OSS was chosen on the basis of functionality (to meet requirements) rather than to reduce costs. However, its use has led to lower licensing costs, lower consultancy rates for developers and faster development times. The software used was security accredited by the MoD.
• Beaumont Hospital, Dublin, Ireland: the hospital has projected savings of €8 million as a result of using OSS. These were mainly due to an elimination of software licensing costs for an x-ray system and the ability to reuse hardware using GNU/Linux.
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