One of the things I here often in the debate about Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) is that “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” This phrase, at least according to Wikipedia article on Free Lunch that cites a 1874 New York Times article, originated based on a “custom peculiar to the Crescent City” (New Orleans), “in [which] every one of the drinking saloons which fill the city a meal of some sort is served free every day. The custom appears to have prevailed long before the war…. I am informed that there are thousands of men in this city who live entirely on meals obtained in this way.” The idea of the “free lunch” not really being free because the saloon owner made up for it in other ways. In other words the price of the food was factored into the drinks, thus the lunch is not really free.
In more recent times, it has been used to demonstrate opportunity costs. The thought is that even if you get something for free, in order to make use of it, you either can’t do something else, or you have to invest time to make use of what is giving to you for free. There are also other uses of this phrase in science, economics, and other areas.
So how does the Free Lunch apply to FOSS and is it really relevant? As Wikipedia points out, “TANSTAAFL (There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch) is sometimes used as a response to claims of the virtues of Free Software. Often, proponents of Free Software, like Richard Stallman will say Free Software is Free as in Freedom, not Free as in Beer to respond to this criticism. While this is undoubtedly true my guess is that the people laying this criticism on Free Software are not going to be swayed so easily by Stallman’s virtues. Let us investigate this to determine is there really is some software that is free as in beer….
First, lets look at the claim that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Is this really true? I know I have had free lunches that didn’t cost me anything, so it seems a bit specious to me. In Dr. Friedman’s book, There’s No Such Thing As a Free Lunch, he says that “. . . every bit of pork, every subsidy, every inflation, every politically-imposed inefficiency, is paid for, and paid for in full — by somebody” (quoted from the book jacket by S. Leon Felkins). [1] Now Dr. Friedman was mostly talking about “free” handouts from the government, and as Felkins says “I suppose it is a true statement.” However, it is only true because of the last part, “by somebody.” In other words, they might be paid by somebody, but not by the person who receives the benefit. Thus, they recipient truly does receive a free lunch. If someone wants to pay for me to have a free lunch, I have no problem with that. And I’m not going to say it wasn’t truly free, because it was truly free to me.
Let’s look at a concrete example of this. One day I was driving across the Delaware Memorial Bridge into Delaware from NJ. When I made it to the toll booth, I found out the person in front of me paid my toll. I have no idea why. I have never seen the person before and as far as I know since, they just did it. Maybe I let them merge in or something earlier, I don’t know, but I didn’t complain. This was definitely the toll booth equivalent to a free lunch.
Now lets move this into the realm of software. The free lunch debate around FOSS usually comes up in the form of, well you can get program X for free, but now someone on your staff will have to support it. What does this mean? Well, I’m sure each person making this argument has there own definition, but basically the argument is that “You either pay to acquire it or pay to deploy it or both.” (Matt Assay)
Does this argument that their is no free lunch with Free Software hold water? Well, I think it might depend on how you look at it, but in a lot of cases I say no. Lets take a look at two different Web server applications as an example. If I need a Web server I can install Microsoft’s Internet Information Services (IIS) or I could install Apache’s HTTP (Web) Server. One of them, Apache, is FOSS. Is it Free Lunch too? Well, the argument that it isn’t free lunch would say that you have to pay to acquire it or deploy it. Well, I don’t have to pay to acquire it, so lets look at deployment costs. Since I have worked with Apache before, there is not much time for me to deploy it, but obviously it takes *some* time. However, how is this different from IIS? Deploying IIS isn’t done magically even if I pay Microsoft for the right to use IIS. Not only would IIS require me to pay to acquire the software, it makes me pay to deploy and maintain it as well. There in lies the crux of the problem with the whole Free Lunch debate when it comes to Free Software. The people that bring up that there is no such thing as a free lunch disregard the amount of work it takes to deploy proprietary solutions. Often the proprietary solutions take the same, if not more, staff time to deploy and maintain when compared to FOSS.
This concept applies to many FOSS programs. Look at Firefox. Firefox seems like a free lunch to me. Yes, I have to install it, but once I do it pretty much maintains itself. Yea, I had to spend about 2 minutes downloading and installing it, but even with a free lunch you have to chew. So maybe nothing is free, but even that expensive lunch you paid for has other costs involved. I remember an example in the library world when a university signed on to be a development partner with some project a proprietary automation vendor was releasing. They put out job ads to hire three people to implement the product. Meanwhile, another university had less then three people developing a similar FOSS project with less than two full-time developers. Not only was the first University paying for the product, they were paying more in staff time then the other university just to implement it.
Maybe Free Software isn’t often the same as Free Lunch. However, Proprietary software isn’t free of other costs either. However, looking at many of the Free Software products I use, many of them I do consider Free Lunch. Yes, I might have to take out a steak knife and cut up that free rib-eye someone offered me, but I’d have to do the same thing if I paid for it at some fancy restaurant.
Randy Metcalfe, the eIFL-FOSS program manager, recently blogged about the “square of engagement” that libraries have with FOSS. Basically the idea is that the for each FOSS application a library uses, you can plot it on a square. Across the horizontal axis is how much use that program takes, and vertically is how much engagement the library has in the application. Engagement can range from following a discussion list about the program, helping write documentation, replying to questions on e-mail lists from other users, to being a full-fledge developer of the program. In my way of thinking, programs that are used extensively but require little or no engagement are the Free Lunch of Free Software.
Randy Metcafe's Square of Engagement
With the square of engagement in mind, I decided to take a look at five of the FOSS applications we have been working with at some level at Binghamton University Libraries. The ones I’ve chosen (although there are a number of others I could have looked at) are Firefox, Apache HTTP (Web) Server, Movable Type, LibX toolbar, and E-prints. Since I don’t have any matrix to determine use or engagement, I estimated where these would go on the square of engagement. As you can see, we use Firefox extensively, but really have little engagement. The same is true of Apache. These programs are Free Lunch.
Selected FOSS applications at Binghamton University Libraries plotted on the Square of Engagement
Movable Type and LibX we use a little less, but we have slightly more engagement. E-prints, since it is related to a new product that we are just getting off the ground has more engagement and less use. I think looking at FOSS this way is really useful. By exploring where different applications are on the square of engagement, you can look to see if your library is engaging in the FOSS programs it should. If we are using something a lot, it makes sense to look if we are properly engaged in the community. While the answer depends on each individual library, I think at this point with these products we are probably in a good place. For example, it really doesn’t make sense, even though we use them extensively, for th library to spend resource developing Apache or Firefox. While they are very important applications for us, they are not software applications that are directly related to our core mission or that we necessarily have core competencies in. Also, there are a lot of talented people already working on these projects.
EPrints we have a high level of engagement with, but little use. This might be troubling considering the low use but for the stage of the project. As we learn and implement the software, it seems obvious that we will have more engagement than use. As the project involving EPrints at Binghamton matures, we will see more use. It remains to be seen how engaged we will become, but I do not expect a drastic reduction in engagement and we may become even more engaged. EPrints software is core to our role as an academic library so it makes sense that we will stay engaged in the product and not just become predominately users with little engagement as we are with Apache and Firefox.
