In this inaugural post, I'm going to attempt to make a short case for free and open-source software, or FOSS. That said, I'm a laywoman and not a particularly intelligent one. I'm not a programmer! I'm just somebody who really enjoys using computers, seeing as I basically grew up on the Internet. Take this all with a grain of salt because I'm *not* an authoritative source on any of this. I simply believe that FOSS has the potential to improve our digital landscape and its margins where it interacts with meatspace should it be more widely adopted eventually, but I'm not a FOSS purist, I'm certainly not trying to make anybody else one, and I'm ultimately just a regular person.
So to start, what even is FOSS? In order to be considered free and open-source, a user has to be able to view the source code of a program, modify it, and redistribute it with or without their modifications. The "free" in FOSS doesn't mean at no cost, but rather refers to an abstract concept of freedom that libertarians (a pretty important demographic for FOSS) love. That means that you can still charge a fee for ownership of a copy of a FOSS program, but you have minimal control over what somebody does with the copy they purchased from you. Hence the maxim "free as in freedom." The person who bought the program from you could modify it and try to sell it like you did, or they could just give it to their friends for free as is typical among the free software community. Under the most radical free software license, the GNU General Public License (or GPL), pretty much all somebody can't do in this scenario is use the open-source code in a closed-source project.
A great example of free, open-source software is the Linux kernel. In the early nineties, a lovely Finnish man named Linus Torvalds was dissatisfied with the state of computing because his hardware had outpaced the operating system he was using and his computer had limited functionality as a result. Because of that and his general passion for programming, Linus decided to start developing an operating system of his own which he based on a UNIX-like operating system called MINIX, UNIX being a family of high-level operating systems popular among the hacker culture of the era. Despite the fact that Linux was only supposed to be a hobby project for Linus, it quickly took off because of the open-source nature of development. In his initial announcement, Linus said that he was developing a free UNIX-like operating system and asked users of MINIX what they did and didn't like about it. He developed Linux according to user preference, and some of those users saw promise in Linux and started to contribute to the project themselves which bettered it overall. This sort of fast-paced public development simply isn't possible with closed-source projects, and it should come as no surprise that some large software companies were initially horrified by the advent of Linux. But because Linux does some things really, *really* well, those companies have mostly been forced to change their tune.
While Linux is cool and all, that mostly speaks to how FOSS is better on the development end. How is it better for end users like you and I? For one, FOSS is usually *actually* free in addition to being "free" in an idealist libertarian brained way. If you're a longtime user of Windows who needs to make a presentation for class or a spreadsheet for work, your first thought might be to pirate Microsoft Office or worse yet, *buy* it. But, there's a no cost FOSS alternative to Microsoft Office called LibreOffice that works *almost* as well, and it's even compatible with Windows! It and many other FOSS programs have been adopted by governments and corporations across the world who were dissatisfied with proprietary software for numerous reasons, and I consider that a certain guarantee of quality.
Of course, FOSS isn't always better than proprietary software in terms of user experience. LibreOffice, while a pretty solid office program suite, isn't perfect. Its spreadsheet program, Calc, doesn't always compare to Microsoft Excel. GIMP, a FOSS image editor, is objectively less powerful than Photoshop. It's even the subject of a pretty funny greentext about using Linux in class. In addition to the user experience with FOSS sometimes being worse, there's also the fact that some proprietary software is really fun to use, like most video games. As such, I'm not a FOSS purist and I wouldn't recommend being one, for now at least. With that considered, why else should you consider using at least some FOSS programs? Well, FOSS is arguably more secure than proprietary software. If anybody can view the source code of a program, security flaws can be discovered and patched more quickly than in proprietary software development. It's well documented that it's immensely difficult to sneak backdoors into open-source software, at least for long stretches of time. Additionally, FOSS typically doesn't have data collection methods built into it whereas plenty of proprietary software does. That means that FOSS is often a safer bet than proprietary software when it comes to the security of your data.
Another argument in favor of FOSS, though a purely idealist one, is that big tech companies kind of fucking suck! Google's motto changing from the very clear "don't be evil" to the more ambiguous "do the right thing" is a sign of the times, in my opinion. I don't think that anybody reading this needs to be told that Apple, Google, Microsoft, et al., suck though. They do, and that's probably not going to change. If you want to avoid your digital footprint being sold to the highest bidder, using FOSS instead of proprietary software is a good first step. If you've read this far, hopefully I've convinced you of some of the merits of FOSS. If this topic interests you, I encourage you to look into web decentralization, a related idea, and Linux if you haven't already! As is, Linux distros (distributions, or Linux based operating systems) dominate the data management sector and the overwhelming majority of smartphones worldwide (but not in the USA, fuck you Apple!) use Android, itself based on Linux. Linux has been adopted for desktop use more slowly, and that's down to what I believe are outdated misconceptions. Most people believe that installing a Linux distro is inconvenient and confusing, and that even if they get past the installation process their computer will be less usable than it'd be if they were using Windows or macOS instead.
Admittedly, installing Linux was pretty confusing the first time I tried it. I don't think it's that bad anymore, though! A good amount of distros come with guided install scripts now. Even Arch Linux, a distro infamous for its perceived difficulty and DIY/RTFM ethos comes with an install script. In any case, if you're interested in Linux but are intimidated by the installation process, set up a VirtualBox! You can attempt to install any Linux distro in a sandbox environment, and should you do it successfully you can even test out the OS. It's fun, if you have a certain type of brain! As for the other point, I think that there are plenty of Linux distros fit for daily use. I've used Linux for a good amount of time now, and I hardly ever experience critical issues, and I use Arch btw. When I do run into an issue, it's typically a slightly annoying software incompatibility, ie., a newly released game isn't working immediately. That sucks, but you can just dual boot Windows if you really want to play certain games. With that said, the days of gaming on Linux being occasionally tedious are numbered. With the release of the Steam Deck and increased attention to the Proton compatibility layer, gaming on Linux has never been better. Check out ProtonDB for a list of Steam games compatibile with Linux and workarounds for those that aren't supported yet. Web browing works perfectly fine, and there's *probably* FOSS alternatives for most of the programs you use on a daily basis. If there isn't you can try the WINE compatibility layer which allows lots of Windows programs to run in Linux, or you can just dual boot Windows.
If you decide to try out Linux, let me know! Thanks for reading. =w=
last edited 4/24/24
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