December 18, 2008

Opensource is not necessarily free

For many people the word Opensource usually means that this software is free, but it seems that this is not necessarily so, if fact the idea that opensource is yours to do with as you please is totally wrong and it fact has never been that way.

This is where the huge business Cisco have come unstuck with the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and the Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC) this is because they have been big users of opensource software and in particular Linux, which they use in their Linksys products.

Yet this is not a question of money otherwise there would be costs attached to the software, opensource means that anyone can use it, but the only rule is that one they have added their bits and pieces to it, the software has to be made available to users, this they have not done. This is why some software producers are taking the legal route.

Source [Computer World]