Would you prefer free beer or freedom

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Would you prefer free beer or freedom?

• Dr Ian Brown

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Overview

• Open source licenses
• Free beer
• Freedom

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Open source licenses

• Must code and derivatives be freely available and
  modifiable?
• Free licenses Berkeley, Gnu Public License,
  Library GPL
• Open source is a cancer that attaches itself in
  an intellectual property sense to everything it
  touches Steve Ballmer
• Microsoft shared source

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Overview

• Open source licenses
• Free beer
• Free software
• Is free software cheaper?
• Is free software more secure?
• Who wants security anyway?
• Freedom

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Free beer
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Is OSS cheaper?

• Need to take into account Total Costs of
  Ownership, not just licenses. Windows monopoly
  means support, user training, compatibility etc
  may all be more pricey for OSS
• But also provides leverage against commercial
  vendors sets a signal for more competition in
  the software market Munichs mayor, who was
  offered 35 off by MS CEO (salesman now joined
  Dark Side)
• Avoids lock-in and makes future tenders more
  competitive. Compatible apps e.g. Star Office are
  available

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Is OSS more secure?

• Virus writers like to target widely deployed
  operating systems and applications Windows
  monoculture
• Inexplicable security design choices by MS
• Many eyes make all bugs shallow?
• The security assurance problem scales in a way
  that making it either easier, or harder, to find
  attacks, will help attackers and defendants
  equally Ross Anderson

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Who wants security?

• Security large expenses, reduced functionality,
  delayed product releases, annoyed users
• Insecurity occasional bad press, and maybe some
  users switching to competitors' products
• Liability for software vendors only way to fix
  this problem Bruce Schneier
• Possible advantage here for commercially-backed
  software!

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Overview

• Open source licenses
• Free beer
• Freedom
• Cryptography SIGINT, PGP vs. Lotus Notes
  browsers
• Democracy-critical applications e-voting
• Free markets innovation
• Not a panacea Red Flag Linux

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Signals intelligence

• Echelon UKUSA alliance
• Frenchelon
• Multinationals

We steal secrets with espionage, with
communications, with reconnaissance satellites
James Woolsey
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Cryptography

• Pretty Good Privacy
• Lotus Notes
• GSM
• NSAKEY

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e-voting

• CEO of Diebold committed to helping Ohio deliver
  its electoral votes to the president next year.
• is the counting of votes a fundamental of
  democracy something you want to take on faith?
  New York Times
• Should critical e-voting procedures be trade
  secrets?

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Innovation

• Network effects in software already create strong
  push towards monopolies
• Free software prevents strategic competition
  using software
• Interoperability a bonus rather than an
  occasional grudging concession
• New anti-trust mechanism?

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Red Flag Linux

• Linux internationalised for Chinese market
• Does not mean Chinese surfers can access banned
  Web sites such as bbc.co.uk
• Encryption software can be run, but encrypted
  communications may well be detected

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Conclusions

• Critical criteria of free software are
  publicly-available and modifiable code and
  restriction on derivative licenses
• Free software is not gratis and may not be much
  cheaper than commercial programs
• but its libre nature can be a genuine force for
  freedom, although not a panacea

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