平成28年度春期 ITパスポート試験問59

This question's explanation and your answers so far.

問59

頻出度★☆☆

次のソフトウェアの組合せのうち, OSS (Open Source Software) だけの組合せはどれか。

出典　平成28年度春期 ITパスポート試験問59

解説

問 59

Incorrectア
Linux and PostgreSQL are OSS, but Internet Explorer is a proprietary (closed-source) web browser provided by Microsoft and is not OSS. Since it contains even one non-OSS item, it does not meet the “OSS only” condition.
Incorrectイ
PostgreSQL is OSS, but both Internet Explorer and Windows are Microsoft’s proprietary products and are not OSS. Because it contains two non-OSS items, it is wrong.
ウ
正解 The correct answer is ウ. OSS (Open Source Software) refers to software whose source code is publicly available and that anyone can freely use, modify, and redistribute. In ウ, Firefox (Mozilla’s web browser), Linux (an OS kernel), and Thunderbird (Mozilla’s email software) are all representative OSS, so all three are made up of OSS. Therefore ウ is the correct “combination consisting only of OSS”.
Incorrectエ
Firefox and Thunderbird are OSS, but Windows is Microsoft’s proprietary OS and is not OSS. Since it contains even one non-OSS item, it does not meet the “OSS only” condition.

ここがポイント

Definition of OSS: software whose source code is publicly available and that can be freely used, modified, and redistributed. As long as you comply with its license (such as the GPL), it can often be obtained and used for free.
The key point of this question is being able to distinguish representative OSS (such as Linux, Firefox, Thunderbird, PostgreSQL, Apache) from proprietary products (such as Windows, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office).

用語

解答問59ウ