unravelling the myth around open source licences - IViR

4. The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public,
so that the whole community benefits. Access to the source code is a precondition for
this.
The freedom to study the functioning of the computer program, to adapt it to your needs or
improve the program and to release improvements to the public cannot exist without a free,
unlimited access to the source code. Consequently, instead of ‘free software’ the expression ‘open
source software’ may be used. Nevertheless, factual access to the source code does not imply that it
is legally permitted to change or distribute software. Microsoft, for example, grants governments and
businesses access to its software source code with its ‘shared source’ initiative. But these parties are
not always permitted to modify and redistribute the software in question. 56
The freedoms mentioned above are included in the open source licenses considered the most
important, and they are also part of the OSD. Article 0 of the GPL guarantees the right to use the
computer program for any purpose. Based on articles 1 and 3 of the GPL, the licensee has the
freedom to copy and distribute the program. Article 2 of the GPL enables the licensee to copy and
distribute the program in an adapted form. To safeguard these principles the GPL requires software
producers to give users free access to the source code, a requirement discussed in the next paragraph.
Article 1 of the OSD states that a license may not restrict redistribution. According to article 3,
the redistribution of modified software and derived works must be permitted. Articles 6 and 8 of the
OSD stipulate that licences cannot restrict the way the software will be used with respect to certain
fields of endeavour and must not depend on the program's being part of a particular software
distribution. In articles 2.1 and 2.2 of the MPL, licensees are given the freedom to use, reproduce,
modify, display, perform, sublicense and distribute the Original Code (or portions thereof) with or
without modifications as long as any modification which a licensee created or to which a licensee
contributed is made available in source code form (article 3.2).
The BSD-licence does not contain such a requirement. It only grants the permission to use and
distribute the software in an adapted or unadapted form.
2.2.3 The importance of openness
As has been noted before, without real access to the source code the freedoms described
earlier cannot be exercised effectively. With access to the source code it is much easier to study and
to modify computer software. As a result, some open source licences require that the distribution of
software in binary form should be accompanied by the source code. This leads to a number of
questions.
First, what is the meaning of the term ‘source code’? As has been pointed out in paragraph
2.1.1, licences use a functional definition of source code. Article 3 of the GPL defines source code as
‘the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it’. Article 1.1 of the MPL gives the
same definition of the term. The explanatory note belonging to article 2 of the OSD uses a similar
definition: ‘We require access to unobfuscated source code because you can’t evolve programs
without modifying them. Since our purpose is to make evolution easy, we require that modification
be made easy’.
Secondly, how must the source code be made accessible? This question also concerns a
functional requirement meant to facilitate the way software is studied and modified. Article 3 of the
GPL states that the binary code of a computer program may be distributed, when:
56 Microsoft Shared Source Initiative Overview, November 2002, at
http://www.microsoftcom/resources/sharedsource/Initiative/Initiative.mspx.
15