OPEN SOURCE
Open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's sources. Some consider it as a
philosophy, and others consider it as a
pragmatic methodology. Before open source became widely adopted, developers and producers used a variety of phrases to describe the concept; the term open source gained popularity with the rise of the
Internet and its enabling of diverse production models, communication paths, and interactive communities.
[1] Subsequently,
open source software became the most prominent face of open source.
The open source model can allow for the concurrent use of different agendas and approaches in production, in contrast with more centralized models of development such as those typically used in commercial software companies.
[2] History
The "open source" label came out of a strategy session
[3] held at
Palo Alto 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 clarify a potential confusion caused by the
ambiguity of the word free in
English, so that the perception of
free software is not anti-commercial. Netscape listened 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.
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.
[5] Critics 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.
Markets
Software is not the only field affected by open source; many fields of study and social and political views have been affected by the growth of the concept of open source. Advocates in one field will often support the expansion of open source in other fields, including
Linus Torvalds who is quoted as saying, "the future is open source everything."
The op
