Defining open source systems.Open source denotes that the origins of a product are publicly accessible in part or in whole. One of the most prominent cultures of open source is from the computer software industry, and this article focuses on open-source software in general. When software is open source, its source code, documentation and other content are publicly accessible by an acquirement of an open-source license, or it is publicly accessible on an open-source basis. Soft-ware developers publish their software as open source, so anybody may also develop the same software or understand how it works. Open-source software generally allows anybody to make a new version of the software, port it to new operating systems Operating systems can be categorized by technology, ownership, licensing, working state, usage, and by many other characteristics. In practice, many of these groupings may overlap. and processor architectures, share it with others or market it. The advantage of open source is to let the product be more understandable, modifiable, duplicatable, or simply accessible. The Open Source Definition, notably, presents an open-source philosophy, and further defines a boundary on the usage, modification and redistribution of open-source software. Software licenses In computing, software that is copyrighted and licensed under a software license is done under a variety of licensing schemes. For end-users there are proprietary licenses and there are free software licenses, and there are proprietary Within these schemes are further classifications. define specific grants or restrictions on usage, modification and redistribution, and several open-source software licenses have qualified within the boundary of the Open Source Definition, like the popular GNU General Public License A software license from the Free Software Foundation (FSF) that ensures every user receives the essential freedoms that define "free" software, which is free of restrictions (see free software). (GPL See GNU General Public License. 1. GPL - General Purpose Language. 2. GPL - ["A Sample Management Application Program in a Graphical Data-driven Programming language", A.L. Davis et al, Digest of Papers, Compcon Spring 81, Feb 1981, pp. 162-167]. ). While open source presents a way to broadly make the sources of a product publicly accessible, the open-source licenses allow the authors to fine tune such access. Terminology The "open source" label came out of a strategy session held in Palo Alto Palo Alto, city, California Palo Alto (păl`ō ăl`tō), city (1990 pop. 55,900), Santa Clara co., W Calif.; inc. 1894. Although primarily residential, Palo Alto has aerospace, electronics, and advanced research industries. 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 Todd Anderson, Larry Augustin Larry Augustin is a venture capitalist and the the former chairman of VA Software, now known as SourceForge, Inc.. He founded VA Research, the predecessor to that company, in 1993 while a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering at Stanford University. , John Hall, Sam Ockman, Christine Peterson and Eric S. Raymond (person) Eric S. Raymond - One of the authors of the Hacker's Jargon File. Eric was involved in the JOLT project and GNU Emacs as well as maintaining several FAQ lists. He is a keen advocate of open source. http://ccil.org/~esr. E-mail: <esr@snark.thyrsus.com> . 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. The 'open source' movement is generally thought to have begun with this strategy session. Many people, nevertheless, claimed that the birth of the Internet, since 1969, started the open source movement, while others do not distinguish between open source and free sol, are movements. The Free Software Foundation (FSF FSF - Free Software Foundation ), started in 1985, intended the word 'free' to mean "free as in free speech" and not "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 (1) (Open System Interconnection) An ISO standard for worldwide communications that defines a framework for implementing protocols in seven layers. Control is passed from one layer to the next, starting at the application layer in one station, proceeding to the ) formed in February 1998 by Eric S. Raymond and Bruce Perens Information Society 2005 in Tunis speaking on: "Is Free/Open Source Software the Answer?" (Richard Stallman is on Bruce's right. . With at least 20 years of evidence from case histories of closed development versus open development already provided by the Internet, the Internet, the, international computer network linking together thousands of individual networks at military and government agencies, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, industrial and financial corporations of all sizes, and commercial enterprises OSI presented the 'open source' case to commercial businesses, like Netscape. OSI hoped that the usage of the label "open source," a term suggested by Peterson of the Foresight Institute The Foresight Nanotech Institute (formerly Foresight Institute) is a Palo Alto, California-based nonprofit organization for increasing awareness the uses and consequences of molecular nanotechnology. 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 OSI, but that attempt was impractical by trademark standards. Meanwhile, Raymond encouraged Netscape to adopt the "open source" label. Netscape released its Navigator source code as open source, with favorable results. Years later, the OSI finally obtained a trademark on "OSI Certified." 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 term Free/Open-Source Software (FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) See free software and open source. FOSS - free open-source software ), or Free/Libre/Open-Source Software (FLOSS), consequently, to describe open-source software that is freely available and free of charge. Open source model In his 1997 essay 'Me Cathedral and the Bazaar ["Y2000], Eric Raymond suggests a model for developing OSS Oss (ôs), city (1994 pop. 62,141), North Brabant prov., S Netherlands; chartered 1399. It is a significant industrial center. Manufactures include meat products, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, electrical equipment, and metalware. known as the Bazaar model. Raymond likens the development of software by traditional methodologies to building a cathedral, "fully crafted by individual wizards or small bands of images working in splendid isolation Splendid Isolation is the foreign policy pursued by Britain during the late 19th century, under the Conservative premierships of Benjamin Disraeli and The Marquess of Salisbury. The term was actually coined by a Canadian M.P. " [RAY2000]. He suggests that all software should be developed using the bazaar style, which he described as "a great babbling babbling Neurology Quasi-random vocalizations in infants that precede language acquisition. See Lalling stage. bazaar of differing agendas and approaches." In 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. F.P. Brooks in his book The Mythical Man-Month See Brook's law and estimating a programming job. advocates this sort of 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 Cathedral and the Bazaar The Bazaar model, however, is different. In the Bazaar model, roles are not clearly defined. Gregorio Robles Robles is a common surname in the Spanish language meaning oaks, and may refer to:
* 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' law states that, "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. New code should be integrated 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 bugs. 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. The stable version offers the users fewer bugs and fewer features. * High Modularization. The general structure of the software should be modular allowing for parallel development. * 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. Most well-known OSS products follow the Bazaar model as suggested by Eric Raymond. These include projects such as Linux, Netscape, Apache, the GNU Compiler Collection The GNU Compiler Collection (usually shortened to GCC) is a set of compilers produced for various programming languages by the GNU Project. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain, and as well as being the official compiler of the GNU system, GCC has been adopted as the , and Perl to mention a few. SourceForge, which maintains that it is the largest repository of Open Source code and applications available on the Internet and had 102,818 Open Source projects as of writing. These projects are undertaken based on the Bazaar model. Open-source license Open-source licenses define the privileges and restrictions a licensor must follow in order to use, modify or redistribute the open source software. Open source software includes software with source code in the public domain and software distributed under an open-source license. Examples of open source licenses 'include Apache License The Apache License (Apache Software License previous to version 2.0) is a free software license authored by the Apache Software Foundation (ASF). The Apache License (versions 1.0, 1.1, and 2. , BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) The software distribution facility of the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) of the University of California at Berkeley. license, GNU General Public License, GNU Lesser General Public License The GNU Lesser General Public License (formerly the GNU Library General Public License) or LGPL is a free software license published by the Free Software Foundation. , MIT License The MIT License is a free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Specifically, it is a GPL-compatible permissive license, meaning that it permits reuse within proprietary software on the condition that the license is distributed with that and Mozilia Public License. Open source movement The open source movement is a large movement of programmers and other computer users that advocates unrestricted access to the source code of software. It grew out of licenses such as BSD, the ubiquitous access to Unix source code at universities. The line between the open source movement and the free software movement is somewhat blurry. Both are founded in the hacker culture. Mostly, the Free software movement is based upon political and philosophical ideals, while open source proponents tend to focus on more pragmatic arguments. Openness is a term that has evolved now to refer to projects that are open to anyone and everyone to contribute to, before and/or after the actual programming. Both groups assert that this more open style of licensing allows for a superior software development process (when compared to closed source), and therefore that pursuing it is in line with rational self-interest. Free software advocates, however, would argue that "freedom" is a paramount merit that one should prefer (or at least weigh heavily) even in cases where proprietary software has some superior technical features. Proponents of the open source development methodology claim that it is superior in a number of ways to the closed source method. Some individuals suggest that the open source methodology is able to produce higher quality software than any other methodology or technique. Stability, reliability, and security are frequently cited as reasons to support open source. One successful application of the open source model is the Linux operating system operating system (OS) Software that controls the operation of a computer, directs the input and output of data, keeps track of files, and controls the processing of computer programs. , which is renowned for its stability and security characteristics. Open source advocates point out that as of the early 2000s, at least 90 percent of computer programmers are employed not to produce software for direct sale, but rather to design and customize software for other purposes, such as in-house applications. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. advocates, this statistic implies that the value of software lies primarily in its usefulness to the developer or developing organization, rather than in its potential sale value--consequently, there is usually no compelling economic reason to keep source code secret from competitors. Open- source advocates further argue that corporations frequently over-protect software in ways actually damaging to their own interests, for reasons ranging from more institutional habit through reflexive territoriality Territoriality Behavior patterns in which an animal actively defends a space or some other resource. One major advantage of territoriality is that it gives the territory holder exclusive access to the defended resource, which is generally associated with to a rational but incorrect evaluation of the tradeoffs between collecting secrecy rent and the quality and market payoff of openness. Open source is a term that is applied to the entire concept that the creation and organization of knowledge is best created through open and cooperative efforts-this movement, variously called "open content" or "free culture," has been expressly endorsed by advocates of OSS, including Linus Torvalds Linus Benedict Torvalds (born December 28 1969 in Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish software engineer best known for initiating the development of the Linux kernel. who said "The future is 'open source everything." Open source vs. closed source The open source vs. closed source (alternatively called proprietary development) debate is sometimes heated. Making money through traditional methods, such as sale of the use of individual copies and patent royalty payment is more difficult and sometimes impractical with open-source software. Some closed-source advocates see open source software as damaging to the market of commercial software. This complaint is countered by a large number of alternative funding streams such as: * giving the software for free and instead charge for installation and support (used by many Linux distributions  The external links in this article or section may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies. )
* Make the software available as open-source so that people will be more likely to purchase a related product or service you do sell (e.g. Openoffice.org vs StarOffice) * cost avoidance Cost avoidance is a management accounting term referring to an expense one has avoided incurring. It is commonly used in the field of energy management to describe the energy costs you avoided due to energy management initiatives. / cost sharing: many developers need a product, so it makes to share development costs (this is the genesis of the X Window System and the Apache web server See Apache. ) Studies about security in open-source software versus closed-source software show that closed-source software have fewer advisories but open-source software usually has less time between flaw discovery and a patch or fix. Advocates of closed source argue that since no one is responsible for open-source software, there is no way to know whether it has been fixed. Open-source advocates argue that since the source code of closed-source software is not available, there is no way to know what bugs may exist. Open source vs. free software Even though open source software and free software on a practical level often share the same licenses, there is a philosophical difference in emphasis. The free software movement emphasizes the moral and ethical aspects of software, seeing technical excellence as a desirable by-product by·prod·uct or by-prod·uct n. 1. Something produced in the making of something else. 2. A secondary result; a side effect. by-product Noun 1. of its ethical standard. The open source movement emphasizes technical excellence, with regard to source code sharing. Participants in OSS development projects Participants in OSS development projects fall broadly into two categories. There are the Core and the Peripheral. The Core or Inner Circle are developers who modify codes that constitute the project. The Peripheral are usually made up of users who use the software. They report bugs, and suggest fixes. The participants may then be further divided into the following. 1. Project leaders who have the overall responsibility (Core). Most of them might have been involved in coding the first release of the software. They control the overall direction of individual projects. 2. Volunteer developers (Core / Periphery) who do actual coding for the project. These include: * Senior members with broader overall authority * Peripheral developers producing and submitting code fixes * Occasional contributors * Maintainers who maintain different aspects of the project 3. Everyday users who perform testing, identify bugs, deliver bug reports, etc. (Periphery) 4. Posters (Periphery) who participate frequently in newsgroups This is a list of newsgroups that are significant for their popularity or their position in Usenet history. As of October 2002, there are about 100,000 Usenet newsgroups, of which approximately a fifth are active. and discussions, but do not do any coding. Open source software development tools There are several types of tools used to aid the activities performed in Open Source Software projects. These tools include the following; Source code revision control Revision control (also known as version control (system) (VCS), source control or (source) code management (SCM)) is the management of multiple revisions of the same unit of information. In OSS development the participants, who are mostly volunteers, are distributed amongst different geographic regions so there is need for tools to aid participants to collaborate in the development of source code. Concurrent Versions System (programming) Concurrent Versions System - (CVS) A cross-platform code management system originally based on RCS. CVS tracks all revisions to a file in an associated file with the same name as the original file but with the string ",v" (for version) appended to the filename. (CVS (1) (Concurrent Versions System) A version control system for Unix that was initially developed as a series of shell scripts in the mid-1980s. CVS maintains the changes between one source code version and another and stores all the changes in one file. ) is a major example of a source code collaboration tool A collaboration tool is something that helps people collaborate. The term is often used to mean collaborative software, but collaboration tools were being used before computers existed, a piece of paper can for example can be used as collaboration tool. being used in OSS.-projects. CVS helps manage the files and codes of a project when several people are working on the project as the same time. CVS can allow several people to work on the same file at the same time. This is done by moving the file into the users' directories and then merging the files when the users are done. CVS also enables one to easily go back to a previous version of a file and retrieve it. Testing tools Since OSS projects undergo frequent integration, tools that help automate testing during system integration are used. One such tool is Tinderbox tin·der·box n. 1. A metal box for holding tinder. 2. A potentially explosive place or situation: referred to the crowded prison as a tinderbox of suppressed violence. . Tinderbox enables participants in an OSS project to detect errors during system integration- Tinderbox runs a continuous build process and informs users about the parts of codes that have issues and on which platform. It also identifies the author of the offending code. The author is then held responsible for ensuring that error is resolved. Bug/Error/Defect tracking tools Bug tracking is a very important aspect of OSS projects. Bug tracking includes the following tasks. It involves keeping a record of all reported bugs, whether the bug has been fixed or not, which version of the software does the bug belong to, and whether the bug submitter has agreed that the bug has been fixed (squashed). Popular bug tracking systems include Bugzilia and GNATS GNATS - GNU Problem Report Management System . GNU gnu (n  ) or wildebeest (wĭl`dəbēst'), large African antelope, genus Connochaetes. GNATS is a set of tools for tracking bugs reported by users to
a central site. It allows problem report management and communication
with users via various means. GNATS stores all the i information about
problem reports in its databases and provides tools for querying,
editing, and maintenance of J the databases.
Bugzilia is a "Defect Tracking In engineering, defect tracking is the process of finding defects in a product, (by inspection, testing, or recording feedback from customers), and making new versions of the product that fix the defects. System" or "Bug-Tracking System". It allows individual or groups of developers to keep track and manage outstanding bugs in their product effectively. Communication Since the participants in an OSS development project are dispersed, there is a need for tools to aid in organizing communication between project participants. This is accomplished with the aid of websites (Freshmeat, GNU Savannah GNU Savannah is a project of the Free Software Foundation, which serves as a collaborative software development management system for Free Software projects. Savannah currently offers CVS, GNU arch, mailing list, web hosting, file hosting, and bug tracking services. , SourceForge), mailing lists (GNU Mailman) and instant messengers. The above mentioned Open Source Software development tools are an essential and integral part of the Open Source Software development model. Influence on other fields The open source movement has been the inspiration for increased transparency and liberty in other fields. For example the release of biotechnology research by CAMBIA CAMBIA Center for the Application of Molecular Biology to International Agriculture , and the encyclopedia named Wikipedia. The open- source concept has also been applied to media other than computer programs, e.g., by Creative Commons. It also constitutes an example of user innovation (see for example the book Democratizing Innovation). Open Cola is another idea inspired by the open source movement. Soft drink giants like Coke and Pepsi hold their formulas closely guarded secrets. Now volunteers have posted the recipe (http://alfredo.octavio.net/soft-drink-formula.pdf) for a similar soda drink on the internet, The taste is said to be comparable to that of the standard beverages. Advocates Leading open source advocates include Brian Behlendorf, Alan Cox, Eben Moglen, Tim O'Reilly, Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, Linus Torvalds and Paul Vixie. Richard Stallman is a central figure in the similar free software movement, which has a different philosophical basis. Stallman does not want his name associated with the term open source. Leading open source critics include Bill Gates, amongst others. Prominent projects and organizations Apache Software Foundation (open source, body) Apache Software Foundation - (ASF) An umbrella consortium that manages the development of the Apache web server, dozens of XML- and Java-based projects (under the name Jakarta), the Ant build tool, the Geronimo J2EE server, the SpamAssassin anti-SPAM tool, and , Debian, FreeBSD, GNU, JBoss, Linux, Mozilla Foundation, NetBSD, Obj ectWeb, OpenBSD, OpenOffice.org, Open Source Development Labs, Open Source Initiative, SourceForge Related topics * Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software * Free culture * Free/Libre Open Source Software * Gift economy * Halloween documents * Open content for non-programming open source projects * Open Design--the application of open source principles to creating material objects and solutions. * Openness--the philosophical term * Agalmics Contrast with Software license models * Freeware * Shareware * Proprietary software Publication and information access models * Open access * Open publishing http://en.wilapedia.org/wika/Open-source |
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