In my last post I mentioned Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS). Many people don’t know what FLOSS is, but it’s really quite simple. FLOSS is software that anybody can see and that they are free to change to suit their needs. FLOSS is programs that that don’t cost an arm and a leg and a first born son. Examples are Linux, OpenOffice.org, GIMP, Apache Web Server, MySQL, and many more.

FLOSS is a disruptive technology – change in what had become a static world. Change is always disruptive. Look at the impact of automobiles on society. Or aircraft, or computers. Society seems to go through periods of change, followed by a plateau of status quo. So, we’ve had a period of status quo with computer programs that were “owned” by corporations, and the use of them was sold to the public. In fact, it’s gotten so bad that software is even being patented – a very questionable practice considering that software is actually mathematics applied very quickly. And the quickly is due to hardware, as much or more than it is due to software.

But FLOSS has changed that image of “owned” software, to a degree. Oh, copyrights still apply, and should. But the licensing of it is such that people can look at the code and say, “Hey, I can do this better,” or “There’s a bug here that I know how to fix.” And there are more people in the world than there are programmers for any one proprietary software company. There are even more programmers in the world than in any one company. And as a result, Free Libre Open Source Software has come a long way, and improved rather quickly in a short period of time. Not only that, but some of the software can be run on more than just one operating system. OpenOffice.org, for example, has ports for Microsoft Windows, MAC, and Linux. GIMP is also multi-OS. But the most dramatic change has come about due to a Free Libre Open Source Operating System: Linux.

When UNIX came out it was improved to a certain point, then it stalled. Linux has already surpassed that point by quite a bit, in part because it was open to being improved by more people. And the reason that more people improved it was because software was being designed around that kernel. In fact, many companies sprang up around the Linux kernel and found ways to interact cooperatively with other programs. Standard ways of installing software and interfacing with things like monitors, keyboards, mice and speakers began to appear. Oh, not standards with a capital “S”, as in approved ISO Standards, or ANSI, or any of those. Just ways that worked because people cooperated with each other, rather than fighting with each other by trying to lock customers into one format or way of doing things.

And that’s what standards are really all about. Cooperation. Progress is not achieved by attempts to monopolize a particular field, or file format, or even by restricting the world to one operating system. Yet there are those who would try to in the name of greed. I’ve been watching this being played out in the attempts of one corporation attempting to ram their file format through ISO acceptance, despite the fact that another similar file format already is an ISO Standard. The one that IS a Standard is a cooperative format is FLOSS, and is already being used by many applications. The other one is extremely restrictive, is encumbered with patented, proprietary, undocumented features, and appears to have absolutely no interest in cooperating with anyone. Yet the company appears to feel that it can be made a Standard by stacking the committees with their people, or by buying the votes, or by intimidation.

Now I don’t claim to know how to completely overcome this bit of unethical behavior, but I can suggest one way that might help. Remember to use your FLOSS every day. And may the FLOSS be with you.