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Frequently Asked Questions

by Marco Battistoni — published on Jun 25, 2008

This section of OSOR provides basic information on Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS), and on IDABC's role in promoting best practices in FLOSS.

What is FLOSS?

Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) relies on four basic freedoms:

  • The freedom to run the program
  • The freedom to study the program, and to adapt it to your needs. Access to the source code is therefore  precondition.
  • The freedom to redistribute the program, so you can help others
  • The freedom to release improvements, so everyone benefits. Again, access to the source code is a precondition.

Software which is published under a licence which gives these four basic freedoms to anyone (or released into the public domain), without restrictions or limitations, is variously called Free Software, Libre Software or Open Source Software.

What is proprietary software?

Software which does not provide the user with the above four freedoms is called proprietary software.

So is FLOSS free?

It is not price which sets FLOSS apart from proprietary software.

Some proprietary software is distributed gratis - so-called "freeware" or "shareware" - without giving the four freedoms described above.

On the other hand, FLOSS is not without costs. The software itself may be available at zero price, but the distributor may charge for various services, such as packaging the software, making it available, providing documentation and maintenance, or adapting it to a client's needs.

Where did FLOSS come from?

In the early days of computing, all software was delivered together with its source code, which the user was free to modify. This was simply because software was not considered a market in itself - instead, software usually came with the hardware, as part of the user manual.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, users routinely improved and shared software. Universities freely distributed the software they developed. 

After IBM separated its soft- and hardware businesses under pressure from US competition authorities, software became a market in itself. The founding of Microsoft in 1975 marked the beginning of the rise of proprietary, packaged software, which users could not change, adapt or build upon. However, most software was (and still is) made to measure for each client, a fact which does not always enter into discussions of the software market (see e.g. the FLOSSImpact study). But even this software was increasingly developed in a proprietary fashion.

Richard Stallman, a programmer at the MIT's Artificial Intelligence laboratory, became increasingly worried by this trend. Looking for a way to avoid proprietary operating systems, he started the GNU project (GNU stands for "GNU's not Unix") in 1983, in a bid to create a free Unix-like operating system. The next year he launched the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as an organisation dedicated to "promoting computer users' rights to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute modified computer programs."

See also: What is GPL?

Though the development of the GNU operating system made progress, it did not truly take off until it was combined with the Linux kernel from the early 1990s on. The resulting GNU/Linux operating system today is one of the best-known examples of Free/Libre/Open Source Software.

While Richard Stallman has always insisted on the term "free software", others were of the view that this implied an anti-commercial standpoint. In 1998, Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens formed the Open Source Initiative, to increase business support for this type of software.

The debate about the correct name for the phenomenon continues today. The acronym FLOSS (for Free/Libre/Open Source Software) has been suggested as a compromise.

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Where is FLOSS today?

Despite these complications, since the mid-1990s FLOSS has gone from a fringe phenomenon to a powerful, mainstream idea. Both enterprises and public bodies increasingly realise the benefits that FLOSS holds for them:

  • New applications can be built on top of existing ones, without the need to start from zero.
  • Software can be re-used and adapted for each user's purposes, allowing public bodies to spend the taxpayer's money more efficiently.
  • The availability of source code (and the right to modify it) lets users check whether a piece of software meets their requirements in terms of security and privacy.


In the course of the past decade, FLOSS has therefore become increasingly popular. FLOSS applications are first, second or third-rung products in terms of market share in several markets, including web servers, server operating systems, desktop operating systems, web browsers, databases, e-mail and other ICT infrastructure systems.

FLOSS market share is higher in Europe than in the US for operating systems and PCs, followed by Asia. These market shares have seen considerable growth in the past five years. This is clearly spelled out in an extensive study by Ghosh et al (2006): FLOSSImpact — Study on the economic impact of open source software on innovation and the competitiveness of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector in the EU. The study is available at flossimpact.eu).

At the same time, the concept of collaborative creativity is gaining in popularity both among individuals and institutions.

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What is GPL, the GNU General Public License?

The GNU General Public License (GPL) is central to the free software universe, as it gives users the right to use, modify and redistribute software licensed under it, while only demanding that they again use the GPL to distribute their modified versions. This reciprocal mechanism gave rise to a fast-growing pool of free software.

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Are there other Free/OSS licences? What about the EUPL?

F/OSS licences are (too) numerous. Facing this proliferation, the Open Source Initiative (OSI) is the main organisation maintaining a list of "approved licenses". The European Union Public Licence (EUPL) was created by the European Commission to comply with the European legal context: it is currently the sole licence which has official value in 22 linguistic versions. The EUPL was approved by OSI. The EUPL reduces the impact of license proliferation by providing a compatibility list, which includes the GPL.

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Am I using FLOSS?

Yes, right now you are looking at a site run using the Apache Web server.

Other examples of popular FLOSS applications include:

  • The GNU/Linux operating system
  • The Firefox web browser
  • OpenOffice, a suite of office applications
  • MediaWiki, the software platform of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia

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What is IDABC's policy towards FLOSS?

IDABC's primary objective in this area is to promote the uptake of Open Source Software in public administrations:

  • Encouraging Europe's public administrations to consider and assess the most advantageous IT solutions for their particular needs;
  • Reducing the costly replication of public sector software that already exists in similar form elsewhere, lowering the cost of eGovernment solutions and helping spread good practice throughout public administrations;
  • Ensuring that the market for IT solutions remains competitive;
  • Reducing IDABC's own costs for application development and maintenance;
  • Helping ensure that Open Source Software solutions can compete on a level playing field with proprietary solutions.

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Where can I find out more?

The links below provide a quick overview of some of the more significant websites regarding Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS). This list, however, is by no means complete:


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