Difference between revisions of "What is Open Source Software?"

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Definition

What is Open Source?

Open source is a development methodology, which offers practical accessibility to a product's source (goods and knowledge).

What is Open Source Software?

A prominent Linux operating system developer, Bruce Perens, gives the definition for open source software as: "Open Source Software must be distributed without royalty that the distributor must make the source code for the software freely available, and the derivative works from the code must also be released as open source." (Bruce Perens, 1997). People can view the source code for reference or study purpose. On the other hand, proprietary software is not free for viewing the source code.

What software can be considered as open source software?

Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code freely. The Open Source Initiative (OSI) gives the Open Source Definition, which is used to determine whether or not software can be considered as open source software. The following is the criteria of open source software, which is written and adapted primarily by Bruce Perens:

• 1. Free Redistribution

• 2. Source Code

• 3. Derived Works

• 4. Integrity of The Author's Source Code

• 5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups

• 6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

• 7. Distribution of License

• 8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product

• 9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software

• 10. License Must Be Technology-Neutral

You can read more detail from Open Source Initiative website, http://opensource.org/docs/osd.

History

The free software movement was launched in 1983. It can be considered as predecessor of open source software. Some programmers advocated that replace the term free software with open source software in 1998, because the term OSS is less ambiguous and more comfortable for the corporate world. Therefore, OSS was known by more and more people.

In the course of the development of OSS, there are two organizations make a significant contribution to improve OSS. The first one is Free Software Foundation (FSF), which was founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985. The FSF distributes and modifies computer software with restriction to support free software movement. The second one is Open Source Initiative (OSI), which was formed in February 1998 by Eric S. Raymond and Bruce Perens. The OSI sought to bring a higher profile to the practical benefits of freely available source code and bring major software businesses and other high-tech industries into open source.

Current Open Source Software

Like most software, OSS also has the copyright. Open source software license is used to protect OSS copyright. OSS licenses contain a number of restrictions, such as the protection of open source status, the protection of author's identity, and the protection of control for software development. In addition, open source software includes software with source code in the public domain and software distributed under an open source license. OSS gives users the right of freedom; everyone can use, modify and improve the software. OSS includes the source code itself and development process, that means free distribution of source code, the modular system and market-development. Anyone can reuse and distribute OSS for supporting public interest or for personal purpose. In a sense, "open source" is a new innovative idea which is used by public. Furthermore, OSS is widely used in many areas. At the same time, OSS has some advantages and disadvantages as following:

Advantages

1. Reduced dependence on software vendors

This indicates that software buyers must feel some level of dependence on proprietary software vendors, from which they desire freedom. Such dependence includes reliance on the
vendor for maintenance, support, and the necessity for the buyer to accept version upgrades that the buyer may not need or want.

2. Produce reliable Alyson's Edit Comment: This #2 advantage seems incomplete.. produce reliable what?

This makes more flexible technology and quicker innovation for software. Users are the independent programmers who can test and fix bugs for open source software; they can cooperate with different programmers in order to modify and add new abilities to the current software. With the effort of those users, high quality open source software can be implemented quickly and inexpensively. Alyson's Edit Comment: Implement high quality what? Last sentence is missing a word I think. Andrey’s Comment: I modified the last sentence. I hope that is what the author meant.

3. Lower cost

Some people think that the open source software is not really free. Most types of software need cost, such as administration, support, software license, and annual maintenance costs, but these costs could be minimized by open source.

(Yuming's comment: I think this is better) (CHAD'S COMMENT: I disagree with the suggested format change. It's still apart of the main article and ,in my opinion, this proposed format is taking it away from that and changes the flow of the article.)

Advantages

1.Reduced dependence on software vendors
This indicates that software buyers must feel some level of dependence on proprietary software vendors, from which they desire freedom.  Such dependence includes reliance on the
vendor for maintenance, support, and the necessity for the buyer to accept version upgrades that the buyer may not need or want.
2. Produce reliable Alyson's Edit Comment: This #2 advantage seems incomplete.. produce reliable what?
This makes more flexible technology and quicker innovation for software. Users are the independent programmers who can test and fix bugs for open source software; they can
cooperate with different programmers in order to modify and add new abilities to the current software. With the effort of those users, high quality open source software can be
implemented quickly and inexpensively.
(Alyson's Edit Comment: Implement high quality what? Last sentence is missing a word I think. Andrey’s Comment: I modified the last sentence.
I hope that is what the author meant.)
3. Lower cost
Some people think that the open source software is not really free. Most types of software need cost, such as administration, support, software license, and annual maintenance costs,
but these costs could be minimized by open source.

Disadvantage

1. Weakness ability

Some software experts and researchers do not believe that open source software has enough ability to produce quality systems identify the unclear process, the late defect discovery, and the lack of any empirical evidence could be the most important problems. In the business area, it is also difficult to design a commercially sound business model around the open source paradigm.

Alyson's Edit Comment: I don't understand the first sentence of the above paragraph. It is really long, and seems to missing words to connect ideas? I couldn't fix it because I was unsure of your idea.

2. Security

Security is an important issue for open source software. It allows everyone to view the source code, which is also includes potential attackers. Hackers might be able to find the weaknesses or loopholes of the software more easily than closed-source software. However, having many users look at source code does not guarantee that security flaws will be found and fixed.

Disadvantage

1. Weakness ability
Some software experts and researchers do not believe that open source software has enough ability to produce quality systems identify the unclear process, the late defect discovery,
and the lack of any empirical evidence could be the most important problems. In the business area, it is also difficult to design a commercially sound business model around the
open source paradigm.
(Alyson's Edit Comment: I don't understand the first sentence of the above paragraph. It is really long, and seems to missing words to connect ideas? I couldn't fix it
because I was unsure of your idea.) 
2. Security
Security is an important issue for open source software. It allows everyone to view the source code, which is also includes potential attackers. Hackers might be able to find the 
weaknesses or loopholes of the software more easily than closed-source software. However, having many users look at source code does not guarantee that security flaws will be found
and fixed.

Although there are pros and cons of open source software, the development process of open source software is moving. (CHAD'S COMMENT: Where's it moving to?) Open source software brings a democratic way of development; it encourages some behavior, and restricts other behavior. In this way, many new good and innovative ideas can be shared by people. In this sense, (CHAD'S COMMENT: "In this sense," sounds awkward with "In this way," in the previous sentence. Try revising these sentences a wee bit.) open source software and open source can be considered as a new political philosophy.

Future

Open source technology has matured, the development of open source software is growing rapidly as more and more people are using it. But OSS is still need to be improved. In conclusion, the prospect of open source software is bright; we need more effort and innovation to improve OSS.

Development tools

Here is list for some development tools; you can use them if you are interested in contributing to the development of open source software:

• Concurrent Versioning System (CSV)[1]

• Subversion (SVN)[2]

• IRC[3]

• Instant messaging[4]

Futher Reading

• Lui, K.M.; Chan, K.C.C. (2008). Software Development Rhythms: Harmonizing Agile Practices for Synergy. John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 978-0-470-07386-5.

• Scacchi, W. 2007. Free/open source software development. In Proceedings of the the 6th Joint Meeting of the European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (Dubrovnik, Croatia, September 03 - 07, 2007). ESEC-FSE '07. ACM, New York, NY, 459-468. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1287624.1287689

• Scacchi, W. 2007. Free/open source software development: recent research results and emerging opportunities. In the 6th Joint Meeting on European Software Engineering Conference and the ACM SIGSOFT Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering: Companion Papers (Dubrovnik, Croatia, September 03 - 07, 2007). ESEC-FSE companion '07. ACM, New York, NY, 459-468. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1295014.1295019

References

• "Frequently Asked Questions". Open Source Initiative. Archived from the original on 2006-04-23. Retrieved on 2008-09-08.

• Verts, William T. (2008-01-13). "Open source software". World Book Online Reference Center.

• http://opensource.org/docs/osd.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_software

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source