Michael Leask

FOSS? Do you mean the thread you use between your teeth? No, but proper dental hygiene is beneficial for good health. FOSS stands for Free Open-Source Software. It’s software developed by individuals or with government grants, made available for free. It can be used or modified by anyone without violating a propriety law. In turn, it can be rebranded without requiring payment to the originator as new software.

Consider Microsoft Word. It’s used to write, format, print, and export documents. It’s software owned by Microsoft and proprietary. Its source code cannot be changed or modified without violating Microsoft’s terms of the agreement. A FOSS version is LibreOffice. It’s free. It does everything MS Word does and even exports to Word and PDF format. The source code of LibreOffice can be modified by users to suit their needs. Anyone can modify the core programming to create their own word processor, or users can provide feedback to help improve LibreOffice.

With FOSS, one does not need a computer background to use it. They are safe, and just like any app, they can be downloaded, installed, and used with little effort. The samples of FOSS that I use are Blender (for 3D and 2D animations), Godot (to create 3D and 2D video games), and GIMP (to modify and create images, similar to Photoshop). I omit the operating system Linux and its distributions (Ubuntu, Red Hat, etc.), which is FOSS, as I think this should be a topic for another time—the general person will understand the relationships with programs rather than OS.

Perhaps one questions the very notion: Why is it free? I worked in Engineering many years ago, and one of the project managers had this same question. He could not comprehend why someone would give something for free or why it wasn’t proprietary. The idea made him think there was something fraudulent or that the software could not compare to the rigour provided by Autodesk, ESRI, and Microsoft. It is a valid question for someone to suspect that FOSS does not give the same results as something established in the private marketplace.

Consider why anyone would want to give their time freely. Why volunteer my skills at any event or facility at all? I suspect the reason is to help the community in which one lives. Software also has a community, and there are skilled people and/or grant money to help develop the software for the world at large (world users are also considered a community). Often, the grants come from European governments who see the usefulness of FOSS as it benefits their people, encourages development and competition, and helps individuals prosper in their businesses. Indie developers and small businesses greatly benefit from FOSS, with one key advantage being lower overhead costs. Individuals at home save money using FOSS.

FOSS is robust and can perform almost all the tasks that proprietary software can do and, in some instances, even more. LibreOffice is a serious alternative to MS Word, especially for post-secondary students. Blender is FOSS and a serious competitor to Autodesk for 3D modelling and animations. Movies are made with Blender, such as Netflix’s NextGen. It’s used in special effects, such as the movie Life of Pi. It is used heavily by professionals and indie studios in the video game industry.

FOSS is all about alternatives that empower users and allow for the creation of new software without fear of being sued. People are consumers, not commodities, and helping individuals’ bottom lines rather than those of private companies creates excellent competition in the marketplace.