independence
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What is
Open Source?
By Mike
McCormack
Perhaps you've heard of the "upstart" Linux operating system, or the Apache web server, which runs more than 60% of the web sites on the Internet [1]? These two pieces of software are fruits of a powerful collaborative technique sometimes called "Open Source" [2], which enables widely dispersed special interest communities to be created and work together toward a common goal. Open source has caused a small revolution in the way that programming is done, however the same principles may be applied to other abstract forms such as art, music and writing.
The principle of Open Source is to encourage sharing of ideas, building upon the ideas of others and morphing those ideas into new ideas.
The principle of Open Source is to encourage sharing of ideas, building upon the ideas of others and morphing those ideas into new ideas. Open Source methodologies work well with programming because programs are large complicated ideas, that can be improved incrementally if they are shared.
Open source programs are free by their very nature. They can be used at no cost, changed, improved and passed on to others without intrusive restrictions.
Open source programs are free by their very nature. They can be used at no cost, changed, improved and passed on to others without intrusive restrictions. The program is provided to others as source code, which are the blueprints of a program in it's human readable form, free of charge. The source code is accompanied by a license which permits the receiver to use, modify and redistribute the program. Some licenses require that any changes made by the receiver are made public [3], whereas others do not [4].
Other benefits of open source software
+ Open software allows people around the world to develop knowledge and understanding of programming by examining and building upon programs other people have written. Governments in poorer countries often can't pay exorbitant fees to buy new software or to customize software they already have. If the software is open, they can pay local programmers, develop local knowledge and keep money in the local economy.
+ Closed software locks you in. If you have many documents in a certain format, you are forced to stay with the vendor that created that format. You can have open software fixed long after the company who wrote it goes broke. You can switch software vendors and pay somebody else to maintain your software if it is open.
For example, some governments are starting to realise how they can get "locked in" to buying from certain vendors if they don't have the source code to their applications, and are looking at passing laws to require the source code to be supplied with their products [5] and [6].
+ You don't really know what the software does if you can't get the source code. This is particularly important for security in governments, since software vendors in one country may try to "backdoor" software in another country for purposes of eavesdropping [7].
+ Open software
is thought by some to be more secure, since it is open to peer review
by a much wider audience than closed software.
Cooperation
on a project usually takes place on mailing lists and a central web site,
such as SourceForge[8]. Mailing lists are used by programmers to discuss
the pros and cons of various changes, and the direction in which to take
the project. The web site usually provides downloads of the latest version
of the program, and instructions on how
to submit changes back. Each project has a Maintainer (sometimes several),
who is trusted to coordinate development of the project.
Some open source projects have corporate backing, others do not. Since the software is made available at no cost to the user, companies do not usually sell open source software on its own, however there are other ways for companies to make money with open software. Companies often sponsor development of projects and profit from supporting the software rather than selling it. Contributors to a projects gain reputation, and sometimes employment from one of the companies that sponsors the project. For example, IBM [9] has sponsored the development of some parts of the Linux operating system, and sells Linux services to large corporate customers.
In programming, Open Source is good at coordinating geographically dispersed workers, generating quality software tested by large numbers of people and making broad use of existing ideas. For many organizations and governments it provides cost effective software at the price of participation in a community of similarly interested people. The concept has been applied to other abstract forms, such as music[10], art[11] and writing[12] with varying degrees of success. As the Internet grows, the creating commons[13] will grow with it.
Note: There is also "Free Software", which is prompted by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), who are more proactive in keeping software open. Open source refers to many different kinds of liberal software license, whereas Free Software only refers to software under the FSF's General Public License (GPL).
[1] http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html
Survey results for August 2003.
[2] http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php
[3] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#GPL
[4] http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php
[5] http://eread.freeshell.org/archives/000013.html
[6] http://archive.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/02/08/09/020809hnrally.xml
[7] http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9909/03/windows.nsa.02
[10] http://silmaril.savarese.org:546/music
[11] http://levitated.net/daily/index.html
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