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\author{Lucas Standen} \title{Why FOSS software is preferred in the development and privacy space?}


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\section{Using this document} This document is written using the {\LaTeX} text compiler. The compiler has set up
clickable links, clickable references and a clickable table of contents, so please use these to your advantage.
The Tex source and Bib Tex bibliography is available for all at \url{https://github.com/standenboy/epq/} under
the MIT/X document license.

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\section{A brief introduction}

\section{Used language in this paper} Throughout this paper I will use language specific to the field of computer
science, and as such it makes sense to provide a brief overview for those who don't know what specific terms mean.

\begin{description}
	\item[Licenses] In this setting a license is a legal document that is distributed with
		almost all modern software, which describes how someone can use a piece of software.
	\item[Free Software] This term refers to software under specific licenses, making them
		free for the user to use (free as in freedom, not the monetary cost). This will be covered further
		in the next section.
	\item[Open Source] This term refers to a piece of software, where the original code for it
		is publicly available. This too will be covered further in the next section.
	\item[FOSS] An acronym for "\textbf{F}ree and \textbf{O}pen \textbf{S}ource \textbf{S}oftware".
\end{description}

\section{What is Free Software?} The Free Software movement is one that has been active for over 40 years
\cite{GNUmaifesto}, it has created some of the most important tools in computing that are used by billions on a
daily basis.  It is so engraved in our lives, yet so few even know what the term means; In a simple note, it is
software for a computer, phone or other device that can be used without violating the users freedom.

The definition of what counts Free Software and what is software freedom can vary depending on who you ask, but
it was originally written that software that allows the following freedoms is Free Software:

\begin{description}
	\item[0] The freedom to run a program for any purpose \item[1] The freedom to study how a program works,
	and modify it to your needs \item[2] The freedom to redistribute a piece of software \item[3] The freedom
	to redistribute a edited version of software publicly
\end{description} \textit{These freedoms were written by Richard Stallman\cite{FOSSdef} who is ever
	important in this space.}

It is important that one does not confuse Free Software with software that is monetarily free, this is known as
Freeware. Free Software defends the users rights to use and modify software and is not focused on its cost.

One should also note the differences between Free Software and Open Source software. In Open Source software,
like Free Software, the original code for a program is available to anyone, however in Open Source, this is to
better the projects development and usability, whereas in Free Software it is to better the users freedom. They
both use the same methods to achieve differing goals; this often leads them to be commonly used together, as the
benefits a user gets from Free Software is much the same in Open Source software, and vice versa.

The main goal of Free Software is to allow the user to have as much freedom as possible when using a piece of
software for any purpose. This is in contrast to the traditional alternative, called Proprietary Software, which
can be defined as software that the user can not edit, modify or redistribute without the original publishers
permission. This kind of software intentionally restricts the users freedom, usually for the purpose of profit or
control of the software. Some common examples of Proprietary Software, are Microsoft's \textit{Windows}, Apple's
\textit{iOS}, and Google's \textit{Chrome} web browser.

Many people don't know that they already use Free Software\cite{COMMONfoss}, but often the tools they use most
often are Free Software. A few examples of this are, Krita\cite{KRITA}; a graphics design and art tool that is
used frequently in animation, and other digital art, is made and managed by the KDE foundation\cite{KDE}, who
make exclusively Free Software. Dovecot\cite{DOVECOT}; an email server used by major email providers and is Free
Software. A final example is Firefox\cite{FIREFOX} a Free Software web browser made by Mozilla that makes up 2.71\%
of the browser market share as of 2024, however in the past has had up to 30\%\cite{BROWSERmarketshare}. These
are all more modern examples of Free Software, however over the past 40 years, there have been countless others.

\section{A brief history of FOSS} The term Free Software was first coined by Richard Stallman in 1983\cite{GNUproject},
however even before this, examples of Free Software (and the disapproval of Proprietary Software), were already
starting to show.

One of the earliest examples of the disapproval of Non-Free Software, was the response to Microsoft's \textit{An open
letter to hobbyists}, which was written by Bill Gates in 1976. This letter detailed that people had been stealing
from Microsoft, as many people had brought hardware through them, but far fewer people had brought required software
for said hardware. The fact this was happening at a scale large enough to cause this showed how many computing
groups, also known as hacker groups/spaces, weren't willing to pay for the software they used, believing that
if they brought the hardware they had done all that was needed\cite{OPENletter}. It is often believed that this
is one of the first examples of \textit{hacker culture}, which would become more common into the 80's and 90's,
and was the starting point of the current Free Software movement.

A key figure in \textit{hacker culture}, as previously mentioned, is Richard Stallman. In the
 1980's he left his job at MIT to work full time on the GNU project, which was designed
to be a full recreation of AT\&T's Unix operating system from the ground up as Free Software.  The idea was to
allow anyone access to a Unix like machine without paying AT\&T's expensive license fees, and allow any user to
view it, redistribute or edit; it was to be the first fully free operating system. The early development of GNU
was relatively slow, and it was not a completely free system for many years, as some core parts of the operating
system were missing, meaning Non-Free alternatives had to be used. However this would later change in 1991, when
final additions would be created.

In 1988 BSD Net1 would release\cite{BSDnet1}, this was the first fully open version of the Berkeley Software
Distribution version of Unix. BSD was by no means new by this point, however it wasn't fully free until this point. It
had completely rewritten all the code from the original Unix that previous versions contained, meaning it was now
completely free from AT\&T's licenses.	It would be the start of a long linage of Open Source operating systems
which are now the base of MacOS, FreeBSD and OpenBSD and is often deamed as the first Open Source operating system.

The GNU project, while still not fully finished, saw the final piece of the puzzle when Linux\cite{LINUX} released in
1991, it was a fully free kernel which GNU was still lacking (however it did get its own kernel called GNU hurd but
Linux is far more commonly used). With GNU and Linux paired together a user could finally get a fully free operating
system for general use, this combination of software is still in use today, having a 4.7\% market share globally
on desktop computers\cite{LINUXmarket}, and on web servers it is dominant. In recent years it has also shown some
use in gaming, with it being the operating system used by Valves \textit{steam deck} gaming handheld\cite{STEAMdeck}.

Since Linux's release there haven't been as many major events in the space and more so a steady flow of updates
and new features, with a large jump over Covid. As of 2024 it would be hard not to say Free Software is fully
viable against its Proprietary counterpart.

\section{How is Free Software developed?} The process of developing Free Software has changed over time, especially
as the internet came to be, allowing developers from all across the world to add things. In modern terms the
development process is very simple, a developer can look at a piece of code, make changes to a local version of
it, then it can be uploaded to a central online version of the code, to be checked by lead maintainers, before
becoming the part of the main version (developers would say creating a local branch and submitting a pull request).
This method was popularized by version control systems; such as git\cite{GIT}, which is also Free Software.
What these tools allow for is the work of many people to brought together into one single code base.

When code is submitted, it generally gets split into individual chunks (called patches) which each have an individual
purpose. Each patch added will fix 1 bug or add 1 feature, this leads to a simple development cycle that can easily
be used to fix bugs, by breaking them down into small patches that need to be written, and distributing the work
between many developers.

Without going into too much detail, this is done by merging all contributions into the main code base by
comparing line numbers in differing versions, this is a fully automated process, managed by your version control
system. This pattern of development is liked amongst programmers as it allows many to submit code all at once,
which is invaluable if your project has many developers. This method is also commonly used in Non-Free Software,
to manage large development teams\cite{NONFREEvcs}.

\section{Comparing Free Software to its Proprietary counterparts} As previously mentioned there are many different
examples of Free Software, often made to be an alternative to a common piece of Proprietary software, each have
their pro's and con's. To compare, one can look at performance data and usability. To show a wide range of software,
to compare this paper will look at programming IDE's, web browsers, and office software, as there make up a large
amount of software, that are used by the majority of computer users.

\subsection{Programming IDE's} \textit{An \textbf{IDE} is an \textbf{I}ntegrated \textbf{D}evelopment
\textbf{E}nvironment}

The main IDE's used by developers are Free Software, but there are a few Non-Free ones that are used.  To compare
text editors, one can look at \textit{Vs Code} as an example of open software, with 73\% of developers claiming
to have used it at some point, and \textit{IntelliJ}, as an example of Non-Free software, with 26\% of developers
claiming to have used it at some point\cite{IDEusage}.

These tools are both commonly used personally and professionally, and are of a similar size, making them ideal to
compare. On the performance side of the argument, VS Code has Intellij beat, being faster to open and generally
more lightweight than Intellij, this has been put up to the fact that VS Code is written in JavaScript, which is
faster than Java, which is what Intellij is written in\cite{VSCODEvsintellij}.

On the usability side, things are more even, both editors have features that makes them better than each other,
each of them have plug-ins support, advanced text editing features and each have auto completion. However in this
sense VS Code still generally comes ahead, with its more main stream user base, more gets made for it, and as it
is Open Source easier for users to add features, in the for of patches, and in the form of plug-ins, although no
definite numbers are available on exact plug-in counts publicly, VS Code is most defiantly ahead.

\subsection{Web Browsers} To compare web browsers, one can look at two commonly used browsers, Google Chrome, and
Firefox. Both of these are known projects, that are used by billions every day, one can look at their performance
and usability to compare these projects.

\begin{figure}[h]
	\caption{Comparing speed of browsers, time \textit{(lower is better)}}
	\includegraphics[width=\textwidth]{webbrowserperfomace.png} \center{\cite{BROWSERperformace}}
\end{figure}

This graph denotes each browsers performance in encryption and decryption, while not fully representative of all
use cases, it is one of many things that goes into the final speed of the browser. As the graph shows, Firefox's
FOSS implementation of JavaScript has lead to a faster final product, most likely as more people have had eyes
on the code, and suggested optimizations over the past 20 years. On the front of performance it is clear that the
FOSS tool has beaten the Proprietary counterpart.

In respect to usability things come more to user preference, so what one needs to look at, is customizability;
the ability to make a piece of software exactly fit their needs. In this yet again Firefox wins out, while both
Firefox and Google Chrome have plug-in capability's, Firefox is known for its completely open system to them,
allowing any and all extensions to be used. In contrast google limits what can be used via the "manifest" documents,
this series of documents describes what is and isn't allowed in the Chrome browser, and is significant as it holds
a large market share. The most recent one of these documents, manifest V3\cite{MANIFESTv3}, has come under many
eyes, as it will disallow ad blockers, and other extensions that selectively remove content from web pages.

In today's world, the majority of browsers are based on Chrome in some way or another with Firefox being one of
the few exceptions to this rule. Due to this, most browsers will be effected by manifest V3 as it comes into full
effect in the coming years.  As this happens it will become increasingly hard to deny that Firefox is easier to
customize and make usable to the users needs.

\subsection{Office Software} When looking at office software, their are two commonly used tools, Microsoft Office
(also known as 365), and Libreoffice.  Microsoft Office is Proprietary software, and has been since its creation
in the early days of personal computing, Libreoffice on the other hand, has been FOSS software from the start
(libre actually means free in spanish, so this is no surprise).  They both provide advanced features, and for the
most part are completely cross compatible. In this sense they have become almost identical tools.

As the tools are so similar one will find it's not worth comparing them, in this way we can say that there is no
difference, they are both mature, well used, effective suites of software, they are equal. This is something many
people struggle to see sometimes as they have been using one piece of Non-Free software for so long, they don't
want to move to anything else.	This has negative effects on the users, many Non-Free tools are effected by cyber
attacks, and long lasting bugs, that could be fixed by switching to Free Software alternatives, which are now at
an equal state to the alternative.

\subsection{General conclusions} Overall one can see that in many areas of software use, FOSS tools are already
at an equal state or better, than the Non-Free counterparts, for general users. One may find that this balance
begins to change in more specific fields, where optimisation and speed may become more important than it is to
the common computer user.

\section{What makes Free Software so appealing to developers?} \section{What makes Free Software so appealing to
privacy experts?} \section{Where else is Free Software used and why?} \section{What's next for the Free Software
space?} \section{Final thoughts}

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