Open Source Software is a variety of software available in source code form: the source code, as well as certain other rights (which are usually reserved for copyright holders only) is offered under a software license. This license permits you to study, change, improve, and in some instances distribute the software. Open Source Software is more often than not developed in a public, collaborative manner. It’s this most prominent example of open source development and is very often compared to user-generated content or open content movements.
Open source software has its roots in the free software movement, which was launched in 1983. In ’98, a group advocated that the misleading tern Free Software should be replaced with the more technically accurate Open Source Software, which was far less ambiguous. Developers might want to publish their software products with an open source license so that other developers or even those who just like to tinker around may develop the same sort of software or get to know the software’s internal functions.
Open source software more often than not allows anybody who feels the inclination to modify the software, move it over to new operating systems and processor archives, share it, or even in some cases to market it. Some scholars have pointed out that in certain cases, the option for users to modify the software themselves actually heightens the value of the product in the following categories: Localization, affordability, transparency, perpetuity, interoperability, and last but certainly not least security. The same scholars agree that, in particular in local government context that “governments have an inherent responsibility and fiduciary duty to taxpayers”. This includes carefully analyzing those factors when they decide on a proprietary software purchase or to implement an open source option.
The open source definition offers the world an open source philosophy and further defines what exactly that term means when it comes to usage, modification and redistribution of the software. Software licenses give users the rights which would otherwise be reserved by numerous copyright laws to only the person who holds the copyright. There are a number of open source licenses which have qualified inside the bounds of the Open Source Definition. The most popular and best example to use to illustrate this point is the GNU General Public License which, to quote, “allows free distribution under the condition that further developments and applications are put under the same license.”, thus allowing them to also remain free. While open source distribution allows the source code of the product to remain available to the public, the licenses ensure that the authors are able to fine tune such access.
Open Source as a label held a strategy session on April 7th, ’98 as a reaction to the controversy and confusion surrounding Netscape’s announcement January of the same year that there would be a source code release for Navigator (released as Mozilla). Tim O’Reilly, Linus Torvalds, Tom Paquin, Jamie Zawinski, Larry Wall, Brian Behlendorf, Sameer Parekh, Eric Allman, Greg Olson, Paul Vixie, John Ousterhout, Guido van Rossum, Philip Zimmermann, John Gilmore and Eric S. Raymond were included in the session. This group used the opportunity before the release to clarify any confusion surrounding the word “free”.
The Free Software Foundation, which was started in 1985 used the word free in the context of freedom of distribution, not in a context of costing no money. As a great deal of software was and still is available free of charge, that software became associated with zero cost and therefore gave the impression of anti-commercialism.
