1.3 Open Source Software and Licensing

Question 1

What are the “four freedoms” as defined by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation?

Answer 1

freedom 0 - run the software
freedom 1 - study and modify the software (source code)
freedom 2 - distribute the software
freedom 3 - distribute the modified software

Question 2

Define what a ‘copyleft’ license for a Linux distribution means?

Name one copyleft license

Answer 2

A copyleft license means that all prior licenses of previous code used must be maintained in all present & future derivative works.

ex: GNU General Public License (GPL)

Question 3

What is the long name for the organization abbreviated “FSF” ?

Answer 3

Free Software Foundation

Question 4

What is the long name for the organization abbreviated “OSI”?

Answer 4

Open Source Initiative

Question 5

Define what a “copyright” license for a Linux distribution means?

Name one copyright license

Answer 5

A copyright license means that all prior licenses of source code used do NOT need to be maintained in present & future derivative works

ex: Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD), CC BY

Question 6

What is ‘Creative Commons’?

Answer 6

a global nonprofit organization that enables sharing and reuse of knowledge through the provision of free legal tools.

Creative Commons assists authors of linux projects and programs the ability to self-select the type of license that works for them based on their needs.

Question 7

True or False: Open source means that project authors cannot profit from their coding efforts

Answer 7

False - Companies such as Red Hat provide support services at a charge.

Open source means that the source code used in applications and operating systems need to be accessible to the public