OSDCM

So what is Open Source, and what can it do for me?

Posted on May 23rd, 2007 in Main

Let’s first take a look back into computer history, the Wikipedia has this to say.

“The “open source” labels came out of a strategy session held at Palo Alto, California, in reaction to Netscape’s January 1998 announcement of a source code release for Navigator. The group of individuals at the session included Christine Peterson who suggested “open source” and also included Todd Anderson, Larry Augustin, Jon Hall, Sam Ockman, and Eric S. Raymond. They used the opportunity before the release of Navigator’s source code to free themselves of the ideological and confrontational connotations of the term free software. Netscape licensed and released their code as open source under the name of Mozilla.
The term was given a big boost at an event organized in April 1998 by technology publisher Tim O’Reilly. Originally titled the “Freeware Summit” and later known as the “Open Source Summit”[4], the event brought together the leaders of many of the most important free and open source projects, including Linus Torvalds, Larry Wall, Brian Behlendorf, Eric Allman, Guido van Rossum, Michael Tiemann, Paul Vixie, Jamie Zawinski of Netscape, and Eric Raymond. At that meeting, the confusion caused by the name “free software” was brought up. Tiemann argued for “sourceware” as a new term, while Raymond argued for “open source.” The assembled developers took a vote, and the winner was announced at a press conference that evening.This milestone may be commonly seen as the birth of the open source movement. However, earlier researchers with access to the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) used a process called Request for Comments, which is similar to open standards, to develop telecommunication network protocols. Characterized by contemporary open source work, this collaborative process led to the birth of the Internet in 1969. An early use of open source was in the 1950s, when IBM distributed operating systems in source format and the SHARE user group was formed to facilitate the exchange of source code.The Open Source Initiative formed in February 1998 by Eric S. Raymond and Bruce Perens. With about 20 years of evidence from case histories of closed development versus 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 they wanted to bring major software businesses and other high-tech industries into open source. Bruce Perens adapted Debian’s Free Software Guidelines to make the Open Source Definition.Wikibooks has a book on the topic of FLOSS Concept BookletCritics have said that the term “open source” fosters an ambiguity of a different kind, in that it confuses the mere availability of the source with the freedom to use, modify, and redistribute it. Developers have used the term Free/Open-Source Software (FOSS), or Free/Libre/Open-Source Software (FLOSS), consequently, to describe open-source software that is freely available and free of charge.”

So that is interesting but what does it mean to you? It’s like the plastics commercial the one where stuff just starts dissolving, a world without plastic. If it were not for Open Source Software, we would not have the Internet, no Firefox, no Google. In the software world there are two paradigms. One is create software, protect your code, and then license the use of said code. Bill Gates did this very, very well. The problem for the consumers is under this paradigm, also known as closed source, is if there is a problem with the software, you have to wait for the select team of developers to fix it. If you would like them to add a feature, they can refuse to do it, or charge you vast sums of money to do it. Working for a closed source software company I deal with this everyday.
So what is different about open source, well for one the code that tells you how the program works must be published. Why is this an advantage? The open paradigm, allows you the user to modify the code if you find a problem. If you want a program to do some thing that it cannot, with the right coding skills you can add this functionality. So if it’s free to use and modify then how can you make money off of it? For one you can code a better application, and if you choose you can sell it to make money. This is the Google way, they don’t sell the ability to run a Google search, but because they are the best, they have lots of traffic and advertisers, flock to them cash in hand.
Another advantage of open source is the number of developers that can work on the project. Take a look at Microsoft, it is a large company, but they have an elite team that decides what will and will not be done. This hurts software in a way because of the innate limit imposed by this model. Open source on the other hand allows any one with the skills to make a contribution. To me this is the best thing for software. Instead of a select few, it’s open to the whole world. This allows people who might not be hired to work for a company such as Microsoft to write that next killer application that everyone uses everyday.
I don’t want to write some boring lecture, the whole point of this post is to educate my readers on what and why open source is all about. So on with a challenge to the readers, I challenge you to use an open source program, Open Office, you can get it here. Download it, install it, run it and post your comments to this blog. Let go of your old habits and familiar software, dare to differentiate! Embrace the open source philosophy!