Introduction
In production and development, open source is a philosophy, or pragmatic methodology that promotes
free redistribution and access to an end product's design and implementation
details. Before the phrase open source became widely adopted, developers
and producers used a variety of terms for the concept; open source
gained hold with the rise of the Internet, and the attendant need for massive
retooling of the computing source code. Opening the source code enabled a
self-enhancing diversity of production models, communication paths, and
interactive communities. The open-source
software movement arose to clarify the environment that
the new copyright, licensing, domain, and consumer issues created.
Generally, open source refers to a program in which the source code is
available to the general public for use and/or modification from its original
design. Open source code is typically created as a collaborative effort in
which programmers improve upon the code and share the changes within the
community. Open source sprouted in the technological community as a response to
proprietary software owned by corporations.
The open-source model includes the concept of concurrent yet different
agendas and differing approaches in production, in contrast with more
centralized models of development such as those typically used in commercial
software companies. A main principle and practice of open-source software
development is peer production by bartering and collaboration, with the end-product, source-material,
"blueprints", and documentation available at no cost to the public.
This model is also used for the development of open-source-appropriate
technologies, solar photovoltaic technology and open-source drug discovery.
The concept of free sharing of technological information existed long
before computers. For example, cooking recipes have been shared since the
beginning of human culture.
In the early years of automobile development, a group of capital
monopolists owned the rights to a 2-cycle gasoline engine patent originally
filed by George B. Selden. By controlling this patent, they were able to
monopolize the industry and force car manufacturers to adhere to their demands,
or risk a lawsuit. In 1911, independent automaker Henry Ford won a challenge to
the Selden patent. The result was that the Selden patent became virtually
worthless and a new association(which would eventually become the Motor Vehicle
Manufacturers Association) was formed. The new association instituted a
cross-licensing agreement among all US auto manufacturers: although each
company would develop technology and file patents, these patents were shared
openly and without the exchange of money between all the manufacturers. By the
time the US entered World War 2, 92 Ford patents and 515 patents from other
companies were being shared between these manufacturers, without any exchange
of money (or lawsuits).
Very similar to open standards, researchers with access to Advanced
Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) used a process called Request for
Comments to develop telecommunication network protocols. This collaborative
process of the 1960s led to the birth of the Internet in 1969.
Early instances of the free sharing of source code include IBM's source releases of its operating systems and other programs in the
1950s and 1960s, and the SHARE user group that
formed to facilitate the exchange of software.
In a foreshadowing of the Internet, software with source code included
became available on BBS networks in the 1980s. This was sometimes a necessity; distributing
software written in BASIC and other
interpreted languages can only be distributed as source code as there is no
separate portable executable binary to distribute.
Example of BBS systems and networks that gathered source code, and setup
up boards specifically to discuss its modification includes WWIV, developed
initially in BASIC by Wayne
Bell. A culture of "modding" his software and distributing the
mods, grew up so extensively that when the software was ported to first Pascal, then C++, its source code
continued to be distributed to registered users, who would share mods and
compile their own versions of the software.] This may have contributed to its
being a dominant system and network, despite being outside the Fidonet umbrella that was
shared by so many other BBS makers.
The sharing of source code on the Internet began when the Internet was
relatively primitive, with software distributed via UUCP, Usenet, and irc, and gopher. BSD, for example, was
first widely distributed by posts to comp.os.linux on the Usenet, which is also
where its development was discussed. Linux followed in this
model.
The label "open source" was adopted by a group of people in
the free software movement at 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", Todd Anderson, Larry Augustin, Jon Hall, Sam Ockman, Michael Tiemann and Eric S. Raymond. Over the next
week, Raymond and others worked on spreading the word. Linux Torvalds gave an
all-important sanction the following day. Phil Hughes offered a pulpit in Linux Journal. Richard Stallman, pioneer of the
free software movement, initially seemed to adopt the term, but later changed
his mind. Those people who adopted the term used the opportunity before the
release of Navigator's source code to free themselves from the ideology of the
term "free software". Netscape released its source code under the Netscape Public
License and later under the Mozilla Public License.
In February 1998, Raymond made the first public call to the free
software community to adopt the new term. The Open Source Initiative was formed shortly thereafter by Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens.
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", The event brought together the leaders of many of the most
important free and open-source projects, including Linux 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.
Starting in the early 2000s, a number of companies began to publish a
portion of their source code to claim they were open source, while keeping key
parts closed. This led to the development of the now widely used terms free
open-source software and commercial open-source software to distinguish between truly open and hybrid forms of open source.
Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code. The
distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the following
criteria:
1. Free Redistribution
The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the
software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing
programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a
royalty or other fee for such sale.
2. Source Code
The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in
source code as well as compiled form. Where some form of a product is not
distributed with source code, there must be a well-publicized means of
obtaining the source code for no more than a reasonable reproduction cost
preferably, downloading via the Internet without charge. The source code must
be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program.
Deliberately obfuscated source code is not allowed. Intermediate forms such as
the output of a preprocessor or translator are not allowed.
3. Derived Works
The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow
them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original
software.
4. Integrity of The Author's
Source Code
The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified
form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files"
with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time.
The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified
source code. The license may require derived works to carry a different name or
version number from the original software.
5. No Discrimination Against
Persons or Groups
The license must not discriminate against any person or group of
persons.
6. No Discrimination Against Fields
of Endeavor
The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a
specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from
being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
7. Distribution of License
The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program
is redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by
those parties.
8. License Must Not Be Specific
to a Product
The rights attached to the program must not depend on the program's
being part of a particular software distribution. If the program is extracted
from that distribution and used or distributed within the terms of the
program's license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have
the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the original
software distribution.
9. License Must Not Restrict
Other Software
The license must not place restrictions on other software that is
distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not
insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be
open-source software.
10. License Must Be
Technology-Neutral
No provision of the license may be predicated on any individual
technology or style of interface.
The Open Source Initiative
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a non-profit corporation with global
scope formed to educate about, and advocate, for the benefits of open source,
and to build bridges among different constituencies in the open source
community. See our about and history pages for more.
About Open Source Licenses
Open source licenses are licenses that comply with the Open
Source Definition — in brief, they allow software to be
freely used, modified, and shared. To be approved by the Open Source Initiative
(also known as the OSI), a license must be go through the Open
Source Initiative's license review process.
Popular Licenses
The following OSI-approved licenses are popular, widely used, or have
strong communities (as defined in the 2006
Proliferation Report):
- Apache
License 2.0
- BSD
3-Clause "New" or "Revised" license
- BSD
2-Clause "Simplified" or "FreeBSD" license
- GNU General
Public License (GPL)
- GNU Library
or "Lesser" General Public License (LGPL)
- MIT license
- Mozilla
Public License 2.0
- Common
Development and Distribution License
- Eclipse
Public License
Courtesy
: Wikipedia , open source
