Open Source Software - Article Example

Open Source Software (Literature Review) Abstract-Today open source software is becoming the most interesting part of the information technology. It has generated interested similar to the first moments of the internet. This impact of open source technology can be seen in software industry as well as in society in whole. Open source software has given completely new business models, which are shaping a network of groups and companies based on open source software development. It has provided a very positive impact as an enabler for the creation of new markets and business opportunities. These days various organization, multi national companies and government from many countries taking interest in open source software development and promotion. It can be seen various types of open source software are competing with other types of software. For example Linux is a good example of open source software that is competing with Microsoft, Apple and other. But depending upon the person some people still thinks that it is a temporary fashion in software industry another on the contrary believes that changes caused by open source will be deep enough and will shape the software industry of the first decade of 21st century. Keywords-Open Source Software (OSS), Free Software, Gratis Software, Source Code, High Level Programming Language. I. Introduction Open source software plays an important role in today’s world. Many people, organization, government sector are benefited by the open source software and are working towards development and support of it. In this paper philosophy of open source, definitions , advantages and disadvantages of open source software, some background history and motivation for open source software, Licences , Copyright Law and Patents, Economics of Open Source Software and at last impact of open source technology will be discussed. II. Open Source Philosophy What is Open Source Software? : One can not define the Open Source Software in few words, because of many categories and variants that exist for Open Source Software. But it is not complicated and the term ‘Open Source Software’ itself gives an idea about it. Now before giving definition from various people about the Open Source Software, first look at what general people think about the Open Source Software. General Idea of Open Source Software: The term ‘Open Source’ in Open Source Software refers for user’s freedom of use, redistribution, etc. One can not assume that Open Source Software and free Software are same things. It can be said clearly that open source software does not have to be gratis. The main features that characterize open source software is the freedom that users have to; Use the software as they wish, Redistribute the software to other users, Have the software at their disposal to fit it to their needs. User can use the software in as many computers as they wish and for any technically appropriate situation .User can improve, fix bugs, study open source software’s operation and functionality. It can be made clear for open source software that is about freedom, and not obligation. That is, users of an open source program can modify it, if they feel it is appropriate. But in any case, they are not forced to do so. In the same way, they can redistribute it, but in general, they are not forced to do so. One more thing is important here that is a piece of software must have access to its source code that is generally written in high level programming language. Source code is required for understanding the functionality, modification and improvement of the software. Now if the programmers have access to source code than they can understand, study, get knowledge, and work as an author of the software. Main Definitions: Kenwood (2001) had given the definition of open source software as: Open source software is software with its source code available that may be used, copied, and distributed with or without modifications, and that may be offered either with or without a fee. If the end-user makes any alterations to the software, he can either choose to keep those changes private or return them to the community so that they can potentially be added to future releases.1 A Brief History of Open Source Software Movement: Open source software have very long story as compared to other types of software. In the beginning there was only free (libre) software. Later on proprietary software came and dominated the software landscape. Only recently in February,1998, Chris Peterson and others coin the term ‘open source’ and register it, to act as a trade mark for free software products. In 1950’s and 1960’s software were distributed with source code and without restrictions. There were several forum such as the IBM SHARE or the DEC DECUS user groups, or the ‘Algorithms’ section of the ‘Communications of the ACM’ journal. In 1960s when IBM and other sold the first large scale computers they came with some software which was free (libre), because it can be shared freely among users, Came with source code, and it could be improved and modified. In the late 1960s, the situation changed after the unbundling of IBM software. In April, 1969 RFC number 1 describing first software for the Internet (ARPANET) is published. The free availability of RFCs and specifically of the protocol specifications was a key factor of the development of Internet that can be seen today. In late 1970s and early 1980s, two different groups were formed which is the roots of the current open source software movement: On the US East coast, Richard Stallman, formerly a programmer at the MIT AI Lab, resigned, and launched the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation. On the US West coast, the Computer Science Research Group (CSRG) of the University of California at Berkeley was improving the UNIX system, and building lots of applications which quickly become ‘BSD Unix’.2 Other remarkable open source project of that time is TeX (a typesetting system, by Donald Knuth), which formed around it a strong community which still exists today. During the 1980s and early 1990s, open source software continued its development, initially in several relatively isolated groups During 1991-1992 whole landscape of open source software and development changed. Two very important events had taken place in different communities. In California, Bill Jolitz was implementing the missing portions to complete the Net/2 distribution, until it was ready to run on i386-class machines. Bill called his work 386BSD. In Finland, Linus Torvalds, a student of computer science, unhappy with Tanenbaum's Minix3, was implementing the first versions of the Linux kernel.4 During 1990s many open source projects had produced good and quality software in good quantity. In late 1990s Open source systems based on GNU/Linux or *BSD gained public acceptance and become a real alternative to proprietary systems and competing head to head with the market leaders (like Windows NT in servers). An outstanding case is Apache as Web server, with a market share consistently over 50%. Developer’s Motivation: Motivation is an important point for development of open source software. One can surprise by seeing the number of open source software that are good in quality and are easily available today. Now one question comes in mind, why did all those people make such good software without a clear reward in terms of money? The answer can not be given in terms of money and personal expectations. In some cases, a clear expectancy of economic reward is there; when a company leads the open source project. But it is not true for all the time. Today many people believe that programming is a highly rewarding activity in itself. And contribution to open source projects can even start as a hobby, or as a side effect of some University or School assignment. One more reward of coding is that code is in use by people, and the communities starts together around and discuss specific functionality, design, and coding issues. The psychological effect of self reward is also an important factor of open source development. Many of the information science and programming started in academic circles. And still today many non-applied sciences advance thanks to the work of scientists who feel more rewarded by research in it than by money. One more aspect of open source software development is that a company can enter open source development as the only way to succeed in a market already dominated by strong competitors (by reusing existing open source code). III. Advantages and Disadvantages Advantages of Open Source Software: Open source software is made available gratis or at a low cost. The other advantages of the open source software can be described as:- The availability of the source code and the right to modify it. The right to redistribute modifications and improvements to the code. The right to use the software in any way Disadvantages of Open Source Models: There are certain disadvantages associated with open source, in which some are associated with classical development model which is used for the proprietary software but this is not the case with open source. No guarantee for the development will continue Significant problems connected with intellectual property. Difficulty to know that a project exists and its status (current. IV. Licences , Copyright Law and Patents Software Licences: In case of proprietary software’s5 the licence withdraws the right of copying, modification, lending, renting, use in several machines and many other things. These licences only allow user to use the software on restricted rights. But today without any licence open source software can not sustain, so there are some compromise between several goals of the open source software to have licences contradicting the open source software philosophy. Some of them are guarantee for redistribution, modification to the users, some conditions imposed by author6 and guarantee that the derived work will be used as open source software. The open source licences given by the author take consideration of protection of openness, moral rights and some proprietary rights, compability with proprietary licences and other open source licences. Some common open source licences are given below: BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) licence. GPL (GNU General Public Licence). MPL (Mozilla Public Licence). X Window System (X Consortium) licence. The Debian Free Software Guidelines. Copyright Law: Copyright is usual method of protection of software products. Open source licences use some form of copyright law. But by default the copyright law does not allow for redistribution and use of software. And redistribution can be done only by granting specific permission in licences. These licences force the redistributors to fulfill certain condition and this is how open source licences work. Patents: Software patent when given for trivial algorithms that can be easily reinvented by the developers creates a serious threat to open source developers and small organizations. The cost of patent litigation can not be afforded by them. This situation is more crucial for open source software as compared to proprietary software because of availability of source code of the software that can be directly accessible. V. Economics of Open Source Software The economic impact of open source models has a very high impact on software industry as well as for the general users. The total cost that is associated with any open source project is generally used for information gathering and drafting project, acquition or creation, deployment, training, maintenance and make transition to a new technology. The new economic model for open source software can be dived in four categories. They are:- Externally Funded Ventures. Internally Funded (Revenue Based). Unfunded Developments. Internal Use VI. Impacts of Open Source Technology Because of open source software good standard, diffusion of information technology and more secure operating system are possible today. Open source software is mainly responsible for creation of internet that is used today worldwide. Today various types of software and operating systems such as Netscape and Linux are used most commonly by the people all over the world. Now it can be assumed that it is beginning of the new model that has a very great impact on whole society. Few times back the market was dominated by the proprietary software such as Microsoft and Mac etc. Now the situation is changed and more and more companies and individuals are working on open source project. Also developed and developing countries are taking interest on open source project. VII. Conclusion In this paper various area of open source software is discussed. Initially the open source philosophy is discussed. In this what is open source, some definitions and a brief history of the open source software is given. Also the motivation of the developers in respect of open source software is discussed. Later advantages and disadvantages and Licences, copyright law and patents covered. In last section of paper economics of open source and Impacts of open source technology on software and business covered. References Jesus, M. Gonzalez-Barahona (2000). Free Software / Open Source: Information Society Opportunities for Europe? Technical report at http://eu.conecta.it/paper/ Newman, N. (1999). The Origins and Future of Open Source Software. White paper at http://www.netaction.org/opensrc/future/ Peter, S., Andre (1998, August 15).Journal: Open Source Philosophy. Journal from http://www.saint-andre.com/journal/1998-08-15.html Krishnamurthy, S. (2006). On the Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation of Free/Libre/Open Source (FLOSS) Developers. Knowledge, Technology & Policy, 18(4), 17-39. Report from the Academic Search Premier Database. Caria, Karickhoff, A., Lippard, M., Smith, C. (2006, March 30).Open Source in the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Industries. 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