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| History | |
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Main article: Open source movement
The free software movement was launched in 1983. In 1998, a group of individuals advocated that the term free software should be replaced by open source software (OSS) as an expression which is less ambiguous and more comfortable for the corporate world.[4] Software developers may want to publish their software with an open source license, so that anybody may also develop the same software or understand its internal functioning. Open source software generally allows anyone to create modifications of the software, port it to new operating systems and processor architectures, share it with others or, in some cases, market it. Scholars Casson and Ryan have pointed out several policy-based reasons for adoption of open source, in particular, the heightened value proposition from open source (when compared to most proprietary formats) in the following categories:
Security
Affordability
Transparency
Perpetuity
Interoperability
Localization.[5]
Particularly in the context of local governments (who make software decisions), Casson and Ryan argue that "governments have an inherent responsibility and fiduciary duty to taxpayers" which includes the careful analysis of these factors when deciding to purchase proprietary software or implement an open-source option.[6]
The Open Source Definition, notably, presents an open source philosophy, and further defines the terms of usage, modification and redistribution of open source software. Software licenses grant rights to users which would otherwise be reserved by copyright law to the copyright holder. Several open source software licenses have qualified within the boundaries of the Open Source Definition. The most prominent and popular example is the GNU General Public License (GPL), which “allows free distribution under the condition that further developments and applications are put under the same licence” – thus also free.[7] While open source distribution presents a way to make the source code of a product publicly accessible, the open source licenses allow the authors to fine tune such access.
The open source label came out of a strategy session held on April 7, 1998 in Palo Alto in reaction to Netscape's January 1998 announcement of a source code release for Navigator (as Mozilla). A group of individuals at the session included Tim O'Reilly, Linus Torvalds, Tom Paquin, Jamie Zawinski, Larry Wall, Brian Behlendorf, Sameer Parekh, Eric Allman, Greg Olson, Paul Vixie, John Ousterhout, Guido van Rossum, Philip Zimmermann, John Gilmore and Eric S. Raymond.[8] They used the opportunity before the release of Navigator's source code to clarify a potential confusion caused by the ambiguity of the word "free" in English.
Many people claimed that the birth of the Internet, since 1969, started the open source movement, while others do not distinguish between open source and free software movements.[9]
The Free Software Foundation (FSF), started in 1985, intended the word "free" to mean freedom to distribute (or "free as in free speech") and not freedom from cost (or "free as in free beer"). Since a great deal of free software already was (and still is) free of charge, such free software became associated with zero cost, which seemed anti-commercial.
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) was formed in February 1998 by Eric S. Raymond and Bruce Perens. With at least 20 years of evidence from case histories of closed software development versus open development already provided by the Internet developer community, the OSI presented the 'open source' case to commercial businesses, like Netscape. The OSI hoped that the usage of the label "open source," a term suggested by Peterson of the Foresight Institute at the strategy session, would eliminate ambiguity, particularly for individuals who perceive "free software" as anti-commercial. They sought to bring a higher profile to the practical benefits of freely available source code, and they wanted to bring major software businesses and other high-tech industries into open source. Perens attempted to register "open source" as a service mark for the OSI, but that attempt was impractical by trademark standards. Meanwhile, due to the presentation of Raymond's paper to the upper management at Netscape—Raymond only discovered when he read the Press Release, and was called by Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale's PA later in the day—Netscape released its Navigator source code as open source, with favorable results.
[edit] Tags:Open Source Initiative,Open-source,Source Code,Copyright,Edit,Open Source Movement,Free Software Movement,Open Source License,Open Source Definition,Gnu General Public License,Palo Alto,Netscape's,Navigator,Mozilla,Tim O'reilly,Linus Torvalds,Jamie Zawinski,Larry Wall,Brian Behlendorf,Sameer Parekh,Eric Allman,Paul Vixie,John Ousterhout,Guido Van Rossum,Philip Zimmermann,John Gilmore,Eric S. Raymond,English,Internet,Free Software Foundation,Foresight Institute,Service Mark,The Open Source Definition,Release,Open Source, | |
| Definitions | |
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The Open Source Initiative's definition is widely recognized as the standard or de facto definition.[citation needed]
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) was formed in February 1998 by Raymond and Perens. With about 20 years of evidence from case histories of closed and open development already provided by the Internet, the OSI continued to present the 'open source' case to commercial businesses. They sought to bring a higher profile to the practical benefits of freely available source code, and wanted to bring major software businesses and other high-tech industries into open source. Perens adapted the Debian Free Software Guidelines to make The Open Source Definition.[10]
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| The Open Source Definition | |
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The Open Source Initiative wrote a document called The Open Source Definition and uses it to determine whether it considers a software license open source. The definition was based on the Debian Free Software Guidelines, written and adapted primarily by Bruce Perens.[11][12] Perens did not base his writing on the "four freedoms" of Free Software from the FSF, which were only widely available later.[13]
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| Perens' principles | |
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Under Perens' definition, open source describes a broad general type of software license that makes source code available to the general public with relaxed or non-existent copyright restrictions. The principles, as stated, say absolutely nothing about trademark or patent use and require absolutely no cooperation to ensure that any common audit or release regime applies to any derived works. It is an explicit "feature" of open source that it may put no restrictions on the use or distribution by any organization or user. It forbids this, in principle, to guarantee continued access to derived works even by the major original contributors.
[edit] Tags:Patent,Audit, | |
| Proliferation of the term | |
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Main article: Open source
While the term "open source" applied originally only to the source code of software,[14] it is now being applied to many other areas such as Open source ecology,[15] a movement to decentralize technologies so that any human can use them. However, it is often misapplied to other areas which have different and competing principles, which overlap only partially.
[edit] Tags:Open Source Ecology, | |
| Non-software use | |
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The principles of open source have been adapted for many forms of user generated content and technology, including open source hardware.
Supporters of the open content movement advocate some restrictions of use, requirements to share changes, and attribution to other authors of the work.
This “culture” or ideology takes the view that the principles apply more generally to facilitate concurrent input of different agendas, approaches and priorities, in contrast with more centralized models of development such as those typically used in commercial companies.[16]
Advocates of the open source principles often point to Wikipedia as an example, but Wikipedia has in fact often restricted certain types of use or user, and the GFDL license it has historically used makes specific requirements of all users, which technically violates the open source principles.
[edit] Tags:Open Content,User Generated Content,Open Source Hardware,Attribution,Ideology,Wikipedia,Gfdl, | |
| Business models | |
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Main article: Business models for open source software
There are a number of commonly recognized barriers to the adoption of open source software by enterprises. These barriers include the perception that open source licenses are viral, lack of formal support and training, the velocity of change, and a lack of a long term roadmap. The majority of these barriers are risk-related. From the other side, not all proprietary projects disclose exact future plans, not all open source licenses are equally viral and many serious OSS projects (especially operating systems) actually make money from paid support and documentation.
A commonly employed business strategy of commercial open-source software firms is the dual-license Strategy, as demonstrated by Ingres, MySQL, Alfresco, and others.
[edit] Tags:Viral,Business Strategy,Dual-license,Ingres,Mysql, | |
| Widely used open source products | |
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Open source software (OSS) projects are built and maintained by a network of volunteer programmers. Prime examples of open source products are the Apache HTTP Server, the e-commerce platform osCommerce and the internet browser Mozilla Firefox. One of the most successful open source products is the GNU/Linux operating system, an open source Unix-like operating system, and its derivative Android, an operating system for mobile devices.[17][18] In some fields, open software is the norm, like in voice over IP applications with Asterisk (PBX). Open source standards are not, however, limited to open-source software. For example, Microsoft has also joined the open-source discussion with the adoption of their OpenDocument format[5] as well as creating another open standard, the Office Open XML formats.
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| Development philosophy | |
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In his 1997 essay The Cathedral and the Bazaar,[19] open source evangelist Eric S. Raymond suggests a model for developing OSS known as the bazaar model. Raymond likens the development of software by traditional methodologies to building a cathedral, "carefully crafted by individual wizards or small bands of mages working in splendid isolation".[19] He suggests that all software should be developed using the bazaar style, which he described as "a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches."
In the traditional model of development, which he called the cathedral model, development takes place in a centralized way. Roles are clearly defined. Roles include people dedicated to designing (the architects), people responsible for managing the project, and people responsible for implementation. Traditional software engineering follows the cathedral model. Fred P. Brooks in his book The Mythical Man-Month advocates this model. He goes further to say that in order to preserve the architectural integrity of a system, the system design should be done by as few architects as possible.
The bazaar model, however, is different. In this model, roles are not clearly defined. Gregorio Robles[20] suggests that software developed using the bazaar model should exhibit the following patterns:
Users should be treated as co-developers
The users are treated like co-developers and so they should have access to the source code of the software. Furthermore users are encouraged to submit additions to the software, code fixes for the software, bug reports, documentation etc. Having more co-developers increases the rate at which the software evolves. Linus's law states, "Given enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow." This means that if many users view the source code, they will eventually find all bugs and suggest how to fix them. Note that some users have advanced programming skills, and furthermore, each user's machine provides an additional testing environment. This new testing environment offers that ability to find and fix a new bug.
Early releases
The first version of the software should be released as early as possible so as to increase one's chances of finding co-developers early.
Frequent integration
Code changes should be integrated (merged into a shared code base) as often as possible so as to avoid the overhead of fixing a large number of bugs at the end of the project life cycle. Some open source projects have nightly builds where integration is done automatically on a daily basis.
Several versions
There should be at least two versions of the software. There should be a buggier version with more features and a more stable version with fewer features. The buggy version (also called the development version) is for users who want the immediate use of the latest features, and are willing to accept the risk of using code that is not yet thoroughly tested. The users can then act as co-developers, reporting bugs and providing bug fixes.
High modularization
The general structure of the software should be modular allowing for parallel development on independent components.
Dynamic decision making structure
There is a need for a decision making structure, whether formal or informal, that makes strategic decisions depending on changing user requirements and other factors. Cf. Extreme programming.
Data suggests, however, that OSS is not quite as democratic as the bazaar model suggests. An analysis of five billion bytes of free/open source code by 31,999 developers shows that 74% of the code was written by the most active 10% of authors. The average number of authors involved in a project was 5.1, with the median at 2.[21]
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| Licensing | |
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This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2007)
Main article: Open-source license
A license defines the rights and obligations that a licensor grants to a licensee. Open Source licenses grant licensees the right to copy, modify and redistribute source code (or content). These licenses may also impose obligations (e.g., modifications to the code that are distributed must be made available in source code form, an author attribution must be placed in a program/ documentation using that Open Source, etc.).
Authors initially derive a right to grant a license to their work based on the legal theory that upon creation of a work the author owns the copyright in that work. What the author/licensor is granting when they grant a license to copy, modify and redistribute their work is the right to use the author’s copyrights. The author still retains ownership of those copyrights, the licensee simply is allowed to use those rights, as granted in the license, so long as they maintain the obligations of the license. The author does have the option to sell/assign, versus license, their exclusive right to the copyrights to their work; whereupon the new owner/assignee controls the copyrights. The ownership of the copyright (the “rights”) is separate and distinct from the ownership of the work (the “thing”) - a person can own a copy of a piece of code (or a copy of a book) without the rights to copy, modify or redistribute copies of it.
When an author contributes code to an Open Source project (e.g., Apache.org) they do so under an explicit license (e.g., the Apache Contributor License Agreement) or an implicit license (e.g., the Open Source license under which the project is already licensing code). Some Open Source projects do not take contributed code under a license, but actually require (joint) assignment of the author’s copyright in order to accept code contributions into the project (e.g., OpenOffice.org and its Joint Copyright Assignment agreement).
Placing code (or content) in the public domain is a way of waiving an author’s (or owner’s) copyrights in that work. No license is granted, and none is needed, to copy, modify or redistribute a work in the public domain.
Examples of free software license / open source licenses include Apache License, BSD license, GNU General Public License, GNU Lesser General Public License, MIT License, Eclipse Public License and Mozilla Public License.
The proliferation of open source licenses is one of the few negative aspects of the open source movement because it is often difficult to understand the legal implications of the differences between licenses.With more than 180,000 open source projects available and its more than 1400 unique licenses, the complexity of deciding how to manage open source usage within “closed-source” commercial enterprises have dramatically increased. Some are home-grown while others are modeled after mainstream FOSS licenses such as Berkeley Software Distribution (“BSD”), Apache, MIT-style (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), or GNU General Public License (“GPL”). In view of this, open source practitioners are starting to use classification schemes in which FOSS licenses are grouped (typically based on the existence and obligations imposed by the copyleft provision; the strength of the copyleft provision).[22]
An important legal milestone for the open source / free software movement was passed in 2008, when the US federal appeals court ruled that free software licences definitely do set legally binding conditions on the use of copyrighted work, and they are therefore enforceable under existing copyright law. As a result, if end-users do violate the licensing conditions, their license disappears, meaning they are infringing copyright.[23]
[edit] Tags:Free Software License, | |
| Funding | |
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See also: Commercial open source applications
Unlike proprietary off-the-shelf software, which comes with restrictive copyright licenses, open-source software can be given away for no charge. This means that its creators cannot require each user to pay a license fee to fund development. Instead, a number of alternative models for funding its development have emerged.
Software can be developed as a consulting project for one or more customers. The customers pay to direct the developers' efforts: to have bugs prioritized and fixed or features added. Companies or independent consultants can also charge for training, installation, technical support, or customization of the software.
Another approach to funding is to provide the software freely, but sell licenses to proprietary add-ons such as data libraries. For instance, an open-source CAD program may require parts libraries which are sold on a subscription or flat-fee basis. Open-source software can also promote the sale of specialized hardware that it interoperates with, as in the case of the Asterisk telephony software, developed by a manufacturer of PC telephony hardware.
Many open-source software projects have begun as research projects within universities, as personal projects of students or professors, or as tools to aid scientific research. The influence of universities and research institutions on open source shows in the number of projects named after their host institutions, such as BSD Unix, CMU Common Lisp, or the NCSA HTTPd which evolved into Apache.
Companies may employ developers to work on open-source projects that are useful to the company's infrastructure: in this case, it is developed not as a product to be sold but as a sort of shared public utility. A local bug-fix or solution to a software problem, written by a developer either at a company’s request or to make his/her own job easier, can be released as an open source contribution without costing the company anything.[7] A larger project such as the Linux kernel may have contributors from dozens of companies which use and depend upon it, as well as hobbyist and research developers.
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| Comparison with closed source | |
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This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2007)
Main article: Comparison of open source and closed source
The debate over open source vs. closed source (alternatively called proprietary software) is sometimes heated.
The top four reasons (as provided by Open Source Business Conference survey[1]) individuals or organizations choose open-source software are: 1) lower cost, 2) security, 3) no vendor 'lock in', and 4) better quality.
Since innovative companies no longer rely heavily on software sales, proprietary software has become less of a necessity [2]. As such, things like open-source content management system -- or CMS -- deployments are becoming more commonplace. In 2009[3], the US White House switched its CMS system from a proprietary system to Drupal open-source CMS. Further, companies like Novell (who traditionally sold software the old-fashioned way) continually debate the benefits of switching to open-source availability, having already switched part of the product offering to open-source code [4]. In this way, open-source software provides solutions to unique or specific problems. As such, it is reported [5] that 98% of enterprise-level companies use open-source offerings in some capacity.
With this market shift, more critical systems are beginning to rely on open-source offerings [6], allowing greater funding (such as US Department of Homeland Security grants [7]) to help "hunt for security bugs."
This is not to argue that open-source software does not have its flaws. One of the greatest barriers facing wide acceptance of open-source software relates to the lack of technical and general support [8]. Open-source companies often combat this by offering support sometimes under a different product name. Acquia provides enterprise-level support for its open-source alternative, Drupal, for instance. [9]
Many open-source advocates argue that open-source software is inherently safer because any person can view, edit, and change code [10]. But closed-source software -- and some research[11] -- suggests that individuals that aren't paid to scrub code have no incentive to do the boring, monotonous work.
Research indicates [24] that the open-source software - Linux - has a lower percentage of bugs than some commercial software.
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| Comparison with free software | |
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Main article: Alternative terms for free software
The main difference is that by choosing one term over the other (i.e. either "open source" or "free software") one lets others know about what one's goals are. As Richard Stallman puts it, "Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement."[25]
Critics have said that the term “open source” fosters an ambiguity of a different kind such that it confuses the mere availability of the source with the freedom to use, modify, and redistribute it. Developers have used the alternative terms Free/open source Software (FOSS), or Free/Libre/open source Software (FLOSS), consequently, to describe open source software which is also free software.
The term “open source” was originally intended to be trademarkable; however, the term was deemed too descriptive, so no trademark exists.[26] The OSI would prefer that people treat Open Source as if it were a trademark, and use it only to describe software licensed under an OSI approved license.[27]
OSI Certified is a trademark licensed only to people who are distributing software licensed under a license listed on the Open Source Initiative's list.[28]
Open source software and free software are different terms for software which comes with certain rights, or freedoms, for the user. They describe two approaches and philosophies towards free software. Open source and free software (or software libre) both describe software which is free from onerous licensing restrictions. It may be used, copied, studied, modified and redistributed without restriction. Free software is not the same as freeware, software available at zero price.
The definition of open source software was written to be almost identical to the free software definition.[29] There are very few cases of software that is free software but is not open source software, and vice versa. The difference in the terms is where they place the emphasis. “Free software” is defined in terms of giving the user freedom. This reflects the goal of the free software movement. “Open source” highlights that the source code is viewable to all; proponents of the term usually emphasize the quality of the software and how this is caused by the development models which are possible and popular among free and open source software projects.
Free software licenses are not written exclusively by the FSF. The FSF and the OSI both list licenses which meet their respective definitions of free software or open source software.
The FSF believes that knowledge of the concept of freedom is an essential requirement,[29][30] insists on the use of the term free,[29][30] and separates itself from the open source movement.[29][30]
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| Open source vs. source-available | |
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Although the OSI definition of "open source software" is widely accepted, a small number of people and organizations use the term to refer to software where the source is available for viewing, but which may not legally be modified or redistributed. Such software is more often referred to as source-available, or as shared source, a term coined by Microsoft.
Michael Tiemann, president of OSI, had criticized[31] companies such as SugarCRM for promoting their software as "open source" when in fact it did not have an OSI-approved license. In SugarCRM's case, it was because the software is so-called "badgeware"[32] since it specified a "badge" that must be displayed in the user interface (SugarCRM has since switched to GPLv3[33]). Another example was Scilab prior to version 5, which called itself "the open source platform for numerical computation"[34] but had a license[35] that forbade commercial redistribution of modified versions. Because OSI does not have a registered trademark for the term "open source", its legal ability to prevent such usage of the term is limited, but Tiemann advocates using public opinion from OSI, customers, and community members to pressure such organizations to change their license or to use a different term.
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| Pros and cons for software producers | |
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Software experts and researchers on open source software have identified several advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage for business is that open source is a good way for business to achieve greater penetration of the market. Companies that offer open source software are able to establish an industry standard and, thus, gain competitive advantage[citation needed]. It has also helped build developer loyalty as developers feel empowered and have a sense of ownership of the end product.[36] Moreover less costs of marketing and logistical services are needed for OSS. It also helps companies to keep abreast of all technology developments. It is a good tool to promote a company's image, including its commercial products.[37] The OSS development approach has helped produce reliable, high quality software quickly and inexpensively.[38] The term “open source” was originally intended to be trademarkable; however, the term was deemed too descriptive, so no trademark exists. Besides, it offers the potential for a more flexible technology and quicker innovation. It is said to be more reliable since it typically has thousands of independent programmers testing and fixing bugs of the software. It is flexible because modular systems allow programmers to build custom interfaces, or add new abilities to it and it is innovative since open source programs are the product of collaboration among a large number of different programmers. The mix of divergent perspectives, corporate objectives, and personal goals speeds up innovation.[39] Moreover free software can be developed in accord with purely technical requirements. It does not require thinking about commercial pressure that often degrades the quality of the software. Commercial pressures make traditional software developers pay more attention to customers' requirements than to security requirements, since such features are somewhat invisible to the customer.[40]
It is sometimes said that the open source development process may not be well defined and the stages in the development process, such as system testing and documentation may be ignored. However this is only true for small (mostly single programmer) projects. Larger, successful projects do define and enforce at least some rules as they need them to make the teamwork possible.[41][42] In the most complex projects these rules may be as strict as reviewing even minor change by two independent developers.[43]
Not all OSS initiatives have been successful, for example, SourceXchange and Eazel.[36] Software experts and researchers who are not convinced by open source’s ability to produce quality systems identify the unclear process, the late defect discovery and the lack of any empirical evidence as the most i Tags: | |
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