| Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available
to the general public. Openness, open content, and communal are other related topics. This
article deals mostly with computer software.
Open source or open-source software (OSS) is any computer software distributed under a license which allows users to change and/or share the software freely. Many programs use a specific
license agreement satisfying the Open Source
Definition. When used as an adjective, the term is hyphenated, e.g. "Apache is open-source software"; used as a noun, there is no hyphen.
Overview
Open-source software is required to have its source code freely available;
end-users have the right to modify and redistribute the software, as well as the right to package and sell the software. Software
with source code in the public domain meets these criteria, as does any
software distributed under the popular GNU General
Public License (GPL). Open-source licenses may have additional restrictions, such as a requirement to preserve the authors'
names and copyright statement in the code.
The term open source in common usage may refer to any software with publicly available source code, though this usage
is discouraged by many. Examples of such non-OSF open source software include some versions of Solaris and PGP. There are also shared source licenses which have some
similarities with open source, but a number of critical differences make such licenses incompatible with the Open Source
Definition.
Despite apparent similarities, 'open-source software' is distinct from free software. The Free Software Foundation's (FSF) free software
definition is more restrictive than the Open Source Definition; as a consequence of this, free software is open source, but
open-source software may or may not be "free". In practice, nearly all open-source licenses also satisfy the FSF's free software
definition, and the difference is more a matter of philosophical emphasis. (One exception is an early version of the Apple Public
Source License, which was considered open-source but not free, because it did not allow private modified versions; this
restriction was later removed.) Software distributed under both the GPL and BSD licenses is considered both free and open-source.
The decision to adopt the term "open source", suggested by Christine Peterson of the Foresight Institute, was based partly on the confusion caused by the dual meaning of the word
"free"; the FSF intended the word to mean "free as in free speech", not "free as in free beer", but nevertheless, free software
came to be associated with zero cost, a problem which was exacerbated by the fact that a great deal of it is, in fact, free of
charge. It was hoped that the usage of the newer term "open source" would eliminate such ambiguity, particularly for users who
might mistakenly associate "free software" with anti-commercialism. Since its introduction, however, the "open source" label has
been criticized for fostering an ambiguity of a different kind: that of confusing it for mere availability of the source, rather
than the freedom to use, modify, and redistribute it.
For additional comparison, see open source movement and
free software movement.
The open source movement
Main Article 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 and goals
which differ somewhat from those of the Free software
movement. The line between the two 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,
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 (and some individuals may suggest that the open source
methodology is the methodology that is able to produce the quality of software that can be higher than that produced by 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, which is
renowned for its stability and security characteristics. Among the works that explore and justify open source development is a
series of works by Eric S. Raymond which includes The Cathedral and the Bazaar and Homesteading the Noosphere.
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 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, and that 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
mere institutional habit through reflexive territoriality to a rational but incorrect evaluation of the tradeoffs between
collecting secrecy rent and the quality and market payoff of openness.
(See also open source culture, Free Culture, Open Content,
open source politics)
The open-source debate
The debate over open source vs. closed source (alternatively called proprietary development) is heated at times. The most
obvious complaint against open-source software involves the complaint that making money through some traditional methods, such as
the sale of the use of individual copies and patent royalty payments, is much more difficult and sometimes impractical with
open-source software. Some software development companies sell the rights to use individual copies of software as their primary
source of income, using a combination of copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret laws (collectively called intellectual property rights laws). By keeping their software source code hidden, they can
make it impractical to make changes to a program they develop, and demand fees for its use and improvement. While most software
is written for internal use, the fees from sale and license of commercial software are the primary source of income for companies
which do sell software. Additionally, some companies with large research and development teams develop extensive patent
portfolios, again with the purpose of making money from patent royalties. These companies can charge licensing fees for the use
of their patents in software, however open source distribution creates the potential for an infinite number of derived works
using the patented technology with no payment to the patent holder.
This complaint is countered by a large number of alternative funding streams, which are actually better-connected to the real
costs of creating and maintaining software. After all, the cost of making a copy of a software program is essentially zero, so
per-use fees may make sense for physical products but are not reasonable for software programs. At one time, open-source software
development was almost entirely volunteer-driven, and this is still true for many small projects. However, a large number of
alternative funding streams have been identified and employed for open source software:
- give away the program and charge for installation and support (this is the model used by many Linux distributions).
- "commoditize complements", that is, intentionally make one product cheaper so that the user is more likely to purchase a
product or service you do sell (this is a primary reason for OpenOffice.org; Sun gives away the office suite to encourage users
to buy their computer hardware).
- cost avoidance / cost sharing; many developers need the product, so they share the cost of its development (this is the
genesis of the X Window system and Apache).
Increasingly open-source software is developed by commercial organizations. In 2004, Andrew Morton noted that 37,000 of the
38,000 recent patches in the Linux kernel were created by developers directly paid to develop the Linux kernel. Many projects,
such as the X Window system and Apache, have had commercial development as a primary source of improvements since their
inception, and this trend has accelerated over time.
One argument made against open-source software is that closed-source development allows more control over the final product,
though this argument does not do much to support its assertion. The theory behind this argument is that open-source software is
primarily a volunteer effort, while closed-source development is typically a salary-driven effort. By having the monetary
resources to fund developers and management, and the ability to control development in a given direction, closed-source
proponents argue that development can be more efficient and more focused. But this argument misses many key points. First, it is
no longer true that OSS is necessarily a volunteer effort; increasingly this is actually not true. Also, a project can be
primarily in-house or not, independent of whether or not it's open source. If a project is developed entirely externally to an
organization, without any support, then of course that project need not take that organization's needs seriously. However, an
organization can devote increasing amounts of resources to ensure its needs are met. At the extreme end, an organization could
"fork" an open source development project and add the critical components it needs. In the end, an open-source software program
always offers greater flexibility to end-users, since any end user can take the program and modify it for their needs.
Large scale open-source projects such as Linux, FreeBSD, or Apache tend to discredit this
argument. However, even within these very successful projects, there are sometimes technological components missing due to the
fact that no one has the time or effort to volunteer to do them, nor a commercial company whose interests cause it to fund such
work. Of course, this also applies to proprietary products; proprietary products also omit technological components because the
expected return is less than other alternatives, even if they are important to a particular customer. It is also worth mentioning
that most of the venture capital money is not going to open source companies today. Instead, many open source projects are either
legacy code like FreeBSD or Apache which were developed long time ago independently of the open source movement, or companies like
Netscape which donate its source code to open source with the hope that they can
compete better, or companies like MySQL which use open source to lure customers for its
more expensive licensed product. This argument is weakened by the fact that most of these projects have seen major or even
complete (in the case of the Netscape code, for example) rewrites and don't contain much of the original code.
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 who said "The Future is Open Source Everything".
Security
Open source advocates usually believe that open source programs are more secure, mostly because they argue, everybody can see
and fix it. Different studies have come to different conclusions about security through obscurity versus open source, with closed source programs having fewer
advisories, but open source software generally being found to have shorter times between discovery and a patch or a fix. Closed
source advocates, including Microsoft corporation, argue that since no one is
responsible for open source, there is no way to know whether it has been fixed. Open Source advocates argue back that no one
knows what bugs exist in a closed source product, since there is no one to check claims made by its vendor.
Some proponents of proprietary or closed source software believe that open source software is more susceptible to security
problems due to the availability of its source code. They also believe that the main factor which causes exploitation of
proprietary software such as Microsoft Internet Explorer is its large market share, making it an attractive target for attackers.
In response, proponents of open source software may believe that the availability of open source code leads to faster discovery
of security issues, and faster resolution of these issues. This approach is also used in cryptography: it is believed that a secure encryption scheme has to be able to withstand attacks from people
who have access to the code, and that security
through obscurity is not a good thing. Though, cryptography and
software development are very much different things. Opening up the source code may in fact hurt the security significantly. For
example, many open source web programs using php have serious security problems and although these problems are being fixed, they
are only fixed when affected end users prompt the developers about the problem.
Influence on other fields
The open source movement has been the inspiration for increased transparency and liberty in other fields. One example, is the
release of biotechnology research by CAMBIA.
Open source advocates
- Bruce Perens, Eric
Raymond, Linus Torvalds, Paul Vixie, Alan Cox, Tim O'Reilly, Brian Behlendorf, Russell Pavlicek (author of the
book Embracing
Insanity)
Projects and organizations
- Debian, FreeBSD, Mozilla, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Linux, OpenOffice.org, Open Source
Initiative, OSTG, Slackware, BerliOS, SourceForge, NOSI, GNU, GOCC
Examples of open-source licenses
For a more extensive list, see Open source license.
Examples of open-source software
- Apache, Linux, BSD, Mozilla, GNU Emacs, TeX, Vim, XFree86, GIMP, PHP, Zope, KDE, GNOME, OpenOffice.org, MySQL, Moodle, Postnuke, phpBB, GnucDNA, Shareaza, RPGToolkit, MediaWiki
For a more extensive list, see List of open-source software packages.
Related topics
Contrast with
External links
On the creation of the name "Open Source"
open source and ...
General links about open source
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