The term
open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a
pragmatic methodologyPragmatism is a philosophical tradition centered on the linking of practice and theory. It describes a process where theory is extracted from practice, and applied back to practice to form what is called intelligent practice...
. Before the term
open source became widely adopted, developers and producers used a variety of phrases to describe the concept;
open source gained hold with the rise of the
InternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, and the attendant need for massive retooling of the computing
source codeIn computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
. Opening the source code enabled a self-enhancing diversity of production models, communication paths, and interactive communities. Subsequently, the new phrase "
open-source softwareOpen-source software is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.Open...
" was born to describe the environment that the new
copyrightCopyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
, licensing,
domainA domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....
, and consumer issues created.
The open-source model includes the concept of concurrent yet different agendas and differing approaches in production, in contrast with more centralized models of
developmentA software developer is a person concerned with facets of the software development process. Their work includes researching, designing, developing, and testing software. A software developer may take part in design, computer programming, or software project management...
such as those typically used in commercial software companies. A main principle and practice of open-source software development is
peer productionPeer production is a way of producing goods and services that relies on self-organizing communities of individuals who come together to produce a shared outcome. The production of content by the general public rather than by paid professionals and experts in the field...
by bartering and collaboration, with the end-product, source-material, "blueprints," and documentation available at no cost to the public. This is increasingly being applied in other fields of endeavor, such as
biotechnologyBiotechnology is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine and other fields requiring bioproducts. Biotechnology also utilizes these products for manufacturing purpose...
.
History
The concept of open source and the free sharing of technological information existed long before computers. For example, cooking recipes have been shared since the beginning of human culture. Open source can pertain to businesses and to computers, software and technology.
In the early years of automobile development, a group of capital
monopolistsA monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...
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 FordHenry Ford was an American industrialist, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, and sponsor of the development of the assembly line technique of mass production. His introduction of the Model T automobile revolutionized transportation and American industry...
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 CommentsIn computer network engineering, a Request for Comments is a memorandum published by the Internet Engineering Task Force describing methods, behaviors, research, or innovations applicable to the working of the Internet and Internet-connected systems.Through the Internet Society, engineers and...
to develop telecommunication network protocols. This collaborative process of the 1960s led to the birth of the
InternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
in 1969.
Early instances of open source and
free softwareFree software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
include
IBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
's source releases of its
operating systemAn operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s and other programs in the 1950s and 1960s, and the
SHARESHARE Inc. is a volunteer-run user group for IBM mainframe computers that was founded in 1955 by Los Angeles-area IBM 701 users. It evolved into a forum for exchanging technical information about programming languages, operating systems, database systems, and user experiences for enterprise users...
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-Technologies:* Bulletin Board System, a computer that allows users to dial into the system over a phone line or telnet connection* BIOS Boot Specification, a system firmware specification related initial program load...
networks in the 1980s. This was sometimes a necessity; software written in
BASICBASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....
and other
interpreted languageInterpreted language is a programming language in which programs are 'indirectly' executed by an interpreter program. This can be contrasted with a compiled language which is converted into machine code and then 'directly' executed by the host CPU...
s could only be distributed as source code, and much of it was freeware. When people began gathering such source code, and setting up boards specifically to discuss its modification, this was a de-facto open source system.
One of the most obvious examples of this is one of the most-used BBS systems and networks,
WWIVWWIV was a popular brand of bulletin board system software from the late 1980s through the mid-1990s. The modifiable source code allowed a sysop to customize the main BBS program for their particular needs and aesthetics...
, developed initially in BASIC by
Wayne BellWayne Bell was the creator of the WWIV BBS system. The First WWIV BBS went online in Los Angeles, CA in December 1984. His own BBS came to be named Amber, node 1 of the WWIVNet BBS network....
. A culture of "modding" his software and distributing the mods, grew up so extensively that when the software was ported to first
PascalPascal or PASCAL may refer to:-People:* Pascal , a French given name* Pascal , a French and Italian surname* Adam Pascal , American actor and singer, best known for his role of Roger Davis in the Broadway musical Rent* Blaise Pascal , French mathematician and philosopher* Cleo Paskal, environmental...
, then
C++C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...
, 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
FidonetFidoNet is a worldwide computer network that is used for communication between bulletin board systems. It was most popular in the early to mid 1990s, prior to the introduction of easy and affordable access to the Internet...
umbrella that was shared by so many other BBS makers.
Open source on the Internet began when the Internet was relatively primitive, with software distributed via
UUCPUUCP is an abbreviation for Unix-to-Unix Copy. The term generally refers to a suite of computer programs and protocols allowing remote execution of commands and transfer of files, email and netnews between computers. Specifically, a command named uucp is one of the programs in the suite; it...
,
UsenetUsenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
, and irc, and gopher. Linux, for example, was first widely distributed by posts to comp.os.linux on the Usenet, which is also where its development was discussed. Linux became the archetype for organized open source development, in general.
As the Internet grew, open source-style software progressed to more advanced presentation and sharing forms through the
World Wide WebThe World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
(of which gopher was a precursor). There are now many Web sites, organizations and businesses that promote the open-source sharing of everything from computer code to mechanics of improving a product, technique, or medical advancement.
The label “open source” was adopted by some people in the
free softwareFree software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
movement at a strategy session held at
Palo Alto, CaliforniaPalo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. The city shares its borders with East Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Stanford, Portola Valley, and Menlo Park. It is...
, in reaction to Netscape's January 1998 announcement of a source code release for
NavigatorNetscape Navigator was a proprietary web browser that was popular in the 1990s. It was the flagship product of the Netscape Communications Corporation and the dominant web browser in terms of usage share, although by 2002 its usage had almost disappeared...
. The group of individuals at the session included Christine Peterson who suggested “open source”, Todd Anderson,
Larry AugustinLarry Augustin is CEO of SugarCRM and is a former venture capitalist and the co-founder and former chairman of VA Software, now known as Geeknet. He founded VA Research, the predecessor to that company, in 1993 while a Ph.D...
, Jon Hall, Sam Ockman,
Michael TiemannMichael Tiemann is Vice President of Open Source Affairs at Red Hat Inc, as well as President of the Open Source Initiative. He previously was the Chief Technical Officer of Red Hat...
and
Eric S. RaymondEric Steven Raymond , often referred to as ESR, is an American computer programmer, author and open source software advocate. After the 1997 publication of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Raymond was for a number of years frequently quoted as an unofficial spokesman for the open source movement...
. Over the next week, Raymond and others worked on spreading the word.
Linus TorvaldsLinus Benedict Torvalds is a Finnish software engineer and hacker, best known for having initiated the development of the open source Linux kernel. He later became the chief architect of the Linux kernel, and now acts as the project's coordinator...
gave an all-important sanction the following day. Phil Hughes offered a pulpit in
Linux JournalLinux Journal is a monthly technology magazine published by Belltown Media, Inc. of Houston, Texas. The magazine focuses specifically on Linux, allowing the content to be a highly specialized source of information for open source enthusiasts.-History:...
.
Richard StallmanRichard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage...
, pioneer of the free software movement, flirted with adopting the term, but changed his mind. Those people who adopted the term used the opportunity before the release of Navigator's source code to free themselves of the ideological and confrontational connotations of the term "free software". Netscape released its source code under the
Netscape Public LicenseThe Netscape Public License is a free software license, the license under which Netscape Communications Corporation originally released Mozilla....
and later under the
Mozilla Public LicenseThe Mozilla Public License is a free and open source software license. Version 1.0 was developed by Mitchell Baker when she worked as a lawyer at Netscape Communications Corporation and version 1.1 at the Mozilla Foundation...
.
The term was given a big boost at an event organized in April 1998 by technology publisher
Tim O'ReillyTim O'Reilly is the founder of O'Reilly Media and a supporter of the free software and open source movements.-Life and career:...
. 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 Linus Torvalds,
Larry WallLarry Wall is a programmer and author, most widely known for his creation of the Perl programming language in 1987.-Education:Wall earned his bachelor's degree from Seattle Pacific University in 1976....
,
Brian BehlendorfBrian Behlendorf is a technologist, computer programmer, and an important figure in the open-source software movement. He was a primary developer of the Apache Web server, the most popular web server software on the Internet, and a founding member of the Apache Group, which later became the Apache...
,
Eric AllmanEric Paul Allman is an American computer programmer who developed sendmail and its precursor delivermail in the late 1970s and early 1980s at UC Berkeley.-Education and training:...
,
Guido van RossumGuido van Rossum is a Dutch computer programmer who is best known as the author of the Python programming language. In the Python community, Van Rossum is known as a "Benevolent Dictator For Life" , meaning that he continues to oversee the Python development process, making decisions where necessary...
,
Michael TiemannMichael Tiemann is Vice President of Open Source Affairs at Red Hat Inc, as well as President of the Open Source Initiative. He previously was the Chief Technical Officer of Red Hat...
,
Paul VixiePaul Vixie is an American Internet pioneer, the author of several RFCs and well-known Unix software.Vixie attended George Washington High School in San Francisco, California. He received a Ph.D in computer science from Keio University in 2011....
,
Jamie ZawinskiJamie Zawinski , commonly known as jwz, is a former professional American computer programmer responsible for significant contributions to the free software projects Mozilla and XEmacs, and early versions of the Netscape Navigator web browser...
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. Five days later, Raymond made the first public call to the free software community to adopt the new term. The
Open Source InitiativeThe Open Source Initiative is an organization dedicated to promoting open source software.The organization was founded in February 1998, by Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond, prompted by Netscape Communications Corporation publishing the source code for its flagship Netscape Communicator product...
was formed shortly thereafter.
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 softwareThe phrase Commercial open source software is used as a euphemism for Proprietary Open Source Software that contains some elements of free and open source software in order to legitimately claim to be "open source", however sometimes also limits availability of some generally enhanced...
to distinguish between truly open and hybrid forms of open source.
Economic analysis
Most economists agree that open-source candidates have an
information goodInformation good in economics and law is a type commodity whose main market value is derived from the information it contains. It may also include services...
(also termed 'knowledge good') aspect. In general, this suggests that the original work involves a great deal of time, money, and effort. However, the cost of reproducing the work is very low, so that additional users may be added at zero or near zero cost — this is referred to as the marginal cost of a product. At this point, it is necessary to consider a
copyrightCopyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
. The idea of copyright for works of authorship is to protect the incentive of making these original works. Copyright restriction then creates access costs on consumers who value the original more than making an additional copy but value the original less than the initial production cost. Thus, they will pay an access cost of this difference. Access costs also pose problems for authors who wish to create something based on another work but are not willing to pay the copyright holder for the rights to the copyrighted work. The second type of cost incurred with a copyright system is the cost of administration and enforcement of the copyright.
Being organized effectively as a
consumers' cooperativeConsumer cooperatives are enterprises owned by consumers and managed democratically which aim at fulfilling the needs and aspirations of their members. They operate within the market system, independently of the state, as a form of mutual aid, oriented toward service rather than pecuniary profit...
, the idea of open source is then to eliminate the access costs of the consumer and the creator by reducing the restrictions of copyright. This will lead to creation of additional works, which build upon previous work and add to greater social benefit. Additionally some proponents argue that open source also relieves society of the administration and enforcement costs of copyright. Organizations such as
Creative CommonsCreative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
have websites where individuals can file for alternative “licenses”, or levels of restriction, for their works. These self-made protections free the general society of the costs of policing copyright infringement. Thus, on several fronts, there is an efficiency argument to be made on behalf of open-sourced goods.
Others argue that society loses through open-sourced goods. Because there is a loss in monetary incentive to the creation of new goods some argue that new products will not be created. This argument seems to apply particularly well to the business model where extensive research and development is done, e.g. pharmaceuticals. However, this argument ignores the fact that cost reduction for all concerned is perhaps an even better monetary incentive than is a price increase. In addition, others argue that visual art and other works of authorship should be free. These proponents of extensive open-source ideals argue that monetary incentive for artists would perhaps better be derived from performances or exhibitions, in a similar fashion to the funding of provision of other types of services.
Case study
An investigation of open-source
industrial symbiosisIndustrial symbiosis can be defined as sharing of services, utility, and by-product resources among diverse industrial actors in order to add value, reduce costs and improve the environment. Industrial symbiosis is a subset of industrial ecology, with a particular focus on material and energy...
was performed by Doyle and Pearce using
Google EarthGoogle Earth is a virtual globe, map and geographical information program that was originally called EarthViewer 3D, and was created by Keyhole, Inc, a Central Intelligence Agency funded company acquired by Google in 2004 . It maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite...
. Their paper found that virtual globes coupled with open-source waste information can be used to:
- Reduce embodied energy
Embodied energy is defined as the sum of energy inputs that was used in the work to make any product, from the point of extraction and refining materials, bringing it to market, and disposal / re-purposing of it...
of transport by reducing distances to recycling facilities
- Choose end-of-life at recycling facilities rather than landfills
- Establish industrial symbiosis and Eco-industrial parks on known by-product synergies
Ultimately, the open-source sharing of information in virtual globes provide a means to identify economically and environmentally beneficial opportunities for waste management if the data have been made available.
Applications
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 often support the expansion of open source in other fields. For example,
Linus TorvaldsLinus Benedict Torvalds is a Finnish software engineer and hacker, best known for having initiated the development of the open source Linux kernel. He later became the chief architect of the Linux kernel, and now acts as the project's coordinator...
said, "the future is open source everything." But Eric Raymond and other founders of the open-source movement have sometimes publicly argued against speculation about applications outside software, saying that strong arguments for software openness should not be weakened by overreaching into areas where the story is less compelling. The broader impacts of the open-source movement, and the extent of its role in the development of new information sharing procedures, remain to be seen.
The open-source movement has inspired increased
transparencyTransparency, as used in science, engineering, business, the humanities and in a social context more generally, implies openness, communication, and accountability. Transparency is operating in such a way that it is easy for others to see what actions are performed...
and liberty in other fields, including the release of
biotechnologyBiotechnology is a field of applied biology that involves the use of living organisms and bioprocesses in engineering, technology, medicine and other fields requiring bioproducts. Biotechnology also utilizes these products for manufacturing purpose...
research by
CAMBIACambia is an independent, international non-profit organization dedicated to democratizing innovation and promoting change for the public good. Through the development and dissemination of new technologies, tools, and collaborative instruments, including the Patent Lens and Biological Open Source ...
,
WikipediaWikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
, and other projects. The open-source concept has also been applied to media other than computer programs, e.g., by
Creative CommonsCreative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
. It also constitutes an example of user innovation (see for example the book
Democratizing InnovationDemocratizing Innovation is the title of a book by Eric von Hippel. It describes how people participate in the development of products they use. For example, von Hippel in the fifth chapter uses the history of mountain biking to propound that users can also "be sophisticated developers". The MIT...
). Often, open source is an expression where it simply means that a system is available to all who wish to work on it. The difference between
crowdsourcingCrowdsourcing is the act of sourcing tasks traditionally performed by specific individuals to a group of people or community through an open call....
and open source is that open-source production is a cooperative activity initiated and voluntarily undertaken by members of the public
Computer software
Open-source softwareOpen-source software is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.Open...
is software whose source code is published and made available to the public, enabling anyone to copy, modify and redistribute the source code without paying royalties or fees. Open source code can evolve through community cooperation. These communities are composed of individual programmers as well as very large companies. Examples of open-source software products are:
Application software
- 7-Zip
7-Zip is an open source file archiver. 7-Zip operates with the 7z archive format, but can read and write several other archive formats. The program can be used from a command line interface, graphical user interface, or with Microsoft Windows shell integration. 7-Zip began in 1999 and is actively...
— file archiverA file archiver is a computer program that combines a number of files together into one archive file, or a series of archive files, for easier transportation or storage...
- Blender
Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software product used for creating animated films, visual effects, interactive 3D applications or video games. The current release version is 2.60, and was released on October 19, 2011...
— 3D graphics editor
- Eclipse
Eclipse is a multi-language software development environment comprising an integrated development environment and an extensible plug-in system...
— development environment comprising an IDEAn integrated development environment is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development...
- GIMP
GIMP is a free software raster graphics editor. It is primarily employed as an image retouching and editing tool and is freely available in versions tailored for most popular operating systems including Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac OS X, and Linux.In addition to detailed image retouching and...
— graphics editor
- Inkscape
Inkscape is a free software vector graphics editor, licensed under the GNU General Public License. Its goal is to implement full support for the Scalable Vector Graphics 1.1 standard....
- Vector graphics editor for .svg
- Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...
— web browser
- Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, open source, cross-platform e-mail and news client developed by the Mozilla Foundation. The project strategy is modeled after Mozilla Firefox, a project aimed at creating a web browser...
— e-mail client
- NASA World Wind
World Wind is an open-source virtual globe developed by NASA and the open source community for use on personal computers. Old versions need Microsoft Windows but the more recent Java version, , is cross platform and provides a suite of . The World Wind Java version was awarded in November 2009...
— virtual globe, geobrowser
- OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...
(and the LibreOfficeLibreOffice is a free and open source office suite developed by The Document Foundation as a fork of OpenOffice.org. It is largely compatible with other major office suites, including Microsoft Office, and available on a variety of platforms...
fork) - office suite
Operating systems
- Android - operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
derived from LinuxLinux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
- FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...
— operating systemAn operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
derived from UnixUnix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
- Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
— family of Unix-like operating systemAn operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s
- OpenIndiana
OpenIndiana is a Unix-like computer operating system released as free and open source software. It forked from OpenSolaris after the discontinuation of that project by Oracle and aims to continue development and distribution of the OpenSolaris codebase. The project operates under the umbrella of...
— a free Unix-like operating system
- Symbian
Symbian is a mobile operating system and computing platform designed for smartphones and currently maintained by Accenture. The Symbian platform is the successor to Symbian OS and Nokia Series 60; unlike Symbian OS, which needed an additional user interface system, Symbian includes a user...
— real-timeA real-time operating system is an operating system intended to serve real-time application requests.A key characteristic of a RTOS is the level of its consistency concerning the amount of time it takes to accept and complete an application's task; the variability is jitter...
mobile operating systemAn operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
- ReactOS
ReactOS is an open source computer operating system intended to be binary compatible with application software and device drivers made for Microsoft Windows NT versions 5.x and up...
— operating systemAn operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
built on Windows NT architecture
- Haiku
Haiku is a free and open source operating system compatible with BeOS. Its development began in 2001, and the operating system became self-hosting in 2008, with the first alpha release in September 2009, the second in May 2010 and the third in June 2011....
— free and open source operating systemAn operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
compatible with BeOSBeOS is an operating system for personal computers which began development by Be Inc. in 1991. It was first written to run on BeBox hardware. BeOS was optimized for digital media work and was written to take advantage of modern hardware facilities such as symmetric multiprocessing by utilizing...
Programming languages
- Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
— a general purpose programming language
- PHP
PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
— scripting language suited for the web
- Python
Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...
— general purpose programming language
- Ruby
Ruby is a dynamic, reflective, general-purpose object-oriented programming language that combines syntax inspired by Perl with Smalltalk-like features. Ruby originated in Japan during the mid-1990s and was first developed and designed by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto...
— general purpose programming language
Server software
- Apache
The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache , is web server software notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. In 2009 it became the first web server software to surpass the 100 million website milestone...
— HTTP web server
- Drupal
Drupal is a free and open-source content management system and content management framework written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. It is used as a back-end system for at least 1.5% of all websites worldwide ranging from personal blogs to corporate, political, and...
— content management systemA content management system is a system providing a collection of procedures used to manage work flow in a collaborative environment. These procedures can be manual or computer-based...
- MediaWiki
MediaWiki is a popular free web-based wiki software application. Developed by the Wikimedia Foundation, it is used to run all of its projects, including Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Wikinews. Numerous other wikis around the world also use it to power their websites...
— wikiA wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
server software, the software that runs Wikipedia
- MongoDB
MongoDB is an open source, high-performance, schema-free, document-oriented database written in the C++ programming language...
— document-oriented, non-relational database
- Moodle
Moodle is a free source e-learning software platform, also known as a Course Management System, Learning Management System, or Virtual Learning Environment...
— course management system or virtual learning environmentDefined largely by usage, the term virtual learning environment has most, if not all, of the following salient properties:* It is Web-based* It uses Web 2.0 tools for rich 2-way interaction* It includes a content management system...
- WordPress
WordPress is a free and open source blogging tool and publishing platform powered by PHP and MySQL. It is often customized into a content management system . It has many features including a plug-in architecture and a template system. WordPress is used by over 14.7% of Alexa Internet's "top 1...
— blog software
Electronics
Open-source hardware is hardware whose initial specification, usually in a software format, are published and made available to the public, enabling anyone to copy, modify and redistribute the hardware and source code without paying royalties or fees. Open-source hardware evolves through community cooperation. These communities are composed of individual hardware/software developers, hobbyists, as well as very large companies. Examples of open-source hardware initiatives are:
- Openmoko
Openmoko is a project to create a family of open source mobile phones, including the hardware specification and the operating system. The project was sponsored by Openmoko Inc....
: a family of open-source mobile phoneA mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
s, including the hardware specification and the operating systemAn operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
.
- OpenRISC
OpenRISC is the original flagship project of the OpenCores community. This project aims to develop a series of general purpose open source RISC CPU architectures...
: an open-source microprocessor family, with architecture specification licensed under GNU GPL and implementation under LGPL.
- Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
's OpenSPARCOpenSPARC is an open-source hardware project started in December 2005. The initial contribution to the project was Sun Microsystems' register-transfer level Verilog code for a full 64-bit, 32-thread microprocessor, the UltraSPARC T1 processor. On 21 March 2006, Sun released the source code to the...
T1 Multicore processor. Sun has released it under GPL.
- Arduino
Arduino is an open-source single-board microcontroller, descendant of the open-source Wiring platform, designed to make the process of using electronics in multidisciplinary projects more accessible. The hardware consists of a simple open hardware design for the Arduino board with an Atmel AVR...
, a microcontroller platform for hobbyists, artists and designers.
- Simputer
The Simputer is a self-contained, open hardware Linux-based handheld computer, first released in 2002. Developed in, and primarily distributed within India, the product was envisioned as a low-cost alternative to personal computers...
, an open hardware handheld computer, designed in IndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
for use in environments where computing devices such as personal computers are deemed inappropriate.
- LEON
LEON is a 32-bit CPU microprocessor core, based on the SPARC-V8 RISC architecture and instruction set. It was originally designed by the European Space Research and Technology Centre , part of the European Space Agency , and after that by Gaisler Research. It is described in synthesizable VHDL...
: A family of open-source microprocessors distributed in a library with peripheral IP cores, open SPARCSPARC is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by Sun Microsystems and introduced in mid-1987....
V8 specification, implementation available under GNU GPL.
- Open Compute Project
Open Compute Project is an initiative announced in April 2011 by Facebook to openly share custom data center designs to improve efficiency across the industry.-External links:*...
: designs for computer data center including power supply, Intel motherboard, AMD motherboard, chassis, racks, battery cabinet, and aspects of electrical and mechanical design.
Beverages
- OpenCola — a cola soft drink, similar to Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
and PepsiPepsi is a carbonated soft drink that is produced and manufactured by PepsiCo...
, whose recipe is open source and developed by volunteers. The taste is said to be comparable to that of the standard beverages. Most corporations producing beverages hold their formulas as closely guarded secrets.
- Vores Øl
Free Beer, formerly known as Our Beer is the first brand of beer with a "free" recipe - free as in "freedom", taken after the term "free software"...
beer — a beer created by students at the IT-University in CopenhagenCopenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
together with SuperflexSUPERFLEX is a Danish artists' group founded in 1993 by Jakob Fenger, Rasmus Nielsen and Bjørnstjerne Christiansen. Superflex describe their projects as Tools, as proposals that invite people to actively participate in and communicate the development of experimental models that alter the prevailing...
, a Copenhagen-based artist collective, to illustrate how open-source concepts might be applied outside the digital world.
- In 2002, the beer company Brewtopia in Australia started an open-source brewery and invited the general population to be involved in the development and ownership of the brewery, and to vote on the development of every aspect of its beer, Blowfly, and its road to market. In return for their feedback and input, individuals received shares in the company, which is now publicly traded on a stock exchange in Australia. The company has always adhered to its open-source roots and is the only beer company in the world that allows the public to design, customise and develop its own beers online.
- Coffee: capsule-based beverage systems such as Nestle
Nestlé S.A. is the world's largest food and nutrition company. Founded and headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland, Nestlé originated in a 1905 merger of the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company, established in 1867 by brothers George Page and Charles Page, and Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé, founded in 1866 by Henri...
's Nespresso or KrupsKrups is a German kitchen appliance manufacturer, named after its founder Robert Krups.It is often confused with the Krupp conglomerate.The company also produces a large variety of household appliances...
' Tassimo turn home-brewed coffee from an inherently "open-source" beverage into a product limited by the specific range of capsules made available by the system manufacturers.
Digital content
- Open-content projects organized by the Wikimedia Foundation — Sites such as Wikipedia and Wiktionary have embraced the open-content GFDL and Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
content licenses. These licenses were designed to adhere to principles similar to various open-source software development licenses. Many of these licenses ensure that content remains free for re-use, that source documents are made readily available to interested parties, and that changes to content are accepted easily back into the system. An important site embracing open-source-like ideals is Project GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
, which posts many books on which the copyright has expired and are thus in the public domainWorks are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
, ensuring that anyone can use that content for any purpose whatsoever.
Health and science
MedicineMedicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
- Pharmaceuticals — There have been several proposals for open-source pharmaceutical development, which led to the establishment of the Tropical Disease Initiative. There are also a number of not-for-profit "virtual pharmas" such as the Institute for One World Health and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative.
- Genomics — The term "open-source genomics" was coined to describe the combination of rapid release of sequence data (especially raw reads) and crowdsourced analyses from bioinformaticians around the world that characterised the analysis of the 2011 E. coli O104:H4 outbreak.
Science
- Research — The Science Commons
Science Commons is a Creative Commons project for designing strategies and tools for faster, more efficient web-enabled scientific research. The organization identifies unnecessary barriers to research, crafts policy guidelines and legal agreements to lower those barriers, and develops technology...
was created as an alternative to the expensive legal costs of sharing and reusing scientific works in journals etc.
- Research — The Open Source Science Project
The Open Source Science Project is a web-based social business wholly dedicated to rendering transparent the 'black-box' of contemporary scientific research and increasing its accessibility by affording all individuals - irrespective of geographic, cultural, socio-economic, academic, or personal...
was created to increase the ability for students to participate in the research process by providing them access to microfunding — which, in turn, offers non-researchers the opportunity to directly invest, and follow, cutting-edge scientific research. All data and methodology is subsequently published in an openly accessible manner under a Creative Commons fair use license.
Robotics
An open-source robot is a robot whose blueprints, schematics, and/or source code are released under an open-source model.
Other
- Open-source principles can be applied to technical areas such as digital communication protocols and data storage formats.
- Open design
Open design is the development of physical products, machines and systems through use of publicly shared design information. The process is generally facilitated by the Internet and often performed without monetary compensation...
— which involves applying open-source methodologies to the design of artifacts and systems in the physical world. Very nascent but has huge potential.
- Open-source-appropriate technology
Open-source appropriate technology refers to technologies that are designed in the same fashion as free and open-source software. These technologies must be "appropriate technology" – meaning technology that is designed with special consideration to the environmental, ethical, cultural, social,...
(OSAT) refers to technologies that are designed in the same fashion as free and open-source software. These technologies must be “appropriate technologyAppropriate technology is an ideological movement originally articulated as "intermediate technology" by the economist Dr...
” (AT) — meaning technology that is designed with special consideration to the environmental, ethical, cultural, social, political, and economic aspects of the community it is intended for. An example of this application is the use of open-source 3D printers like the RepRap to manufacture appropriate technology.
- Teaching — which involves applying the concepts of open source to instruction using a shared web space as a platform to improve upon learning, organizational, and management challenges. An example of an Open-source courseware is the Java Education & Development Initiative (JEDI). Other examples include wikiversity
Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project, which supports learning communities, their learning materials, and resulting activities. It differs from more structured projects such as Wikipedia in that it instead offers a series of tutorials, or courses, for the fostering of learning, rather than...
. At the university level, the use of open-source-appropriate technologyOpen-source appropriate technology refers to technologies that are designed in the same fashion as free and open-source software. These technologies must be "appropriate technology" – meaning technology that is designed with special consideration to the environmental, ethical, cultural, social,...
classroom projects has been shown to be successful in forging the connection between science/engineering and social benefit: This approach has the potential to use university students’ access to resources and testing equipment in furthering the development of appropriate technologyAppropriate technology is an ideological movement originally articulated as "intermediate technology" by the economist Dr...
. Similarly OSAT has been used as a tool for improving service learning.
- There are few examples of business information (methodologies, advice, guidance, practices) using the open-source model, although this is another case where the potential is enormous. ITIL
Itil may mean:*Atil or Itil, the ancient capital of Khazaria*Itil , also Idel, Atil, Atal, the ancient and modern Turkic name of the river Volga.ITIL can stand for:*Information Technology Infrastructure Library...
is close to open source. It uses the Cathedral model (no mechanism exists for user contribution) and the content must be bought for a fee that is small by business consulting standards (hundreds of British pounds). Various checklists are published by government, banks or accounting firms.
Society and culture
Open-source culture is the creative practice of appropriation and free sharing of found and created content. Examples include
collageA collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
,
found footageFound footage is a filmmaking term which describes a method of compiling films partly or entirely of footage which has not been created by the filmmaker, and changing its meaning by placing it in a new context. It should not be mistaken for documentary or compilation films. It is also not to be...
film, music, and appropriation art. Open-source culture is one in which
fixationFixation may refer to the following:In science:*Fixation , the state in which an individual becomes obsessed with an attachment to another human, an animal, or an inanimate object...
s, works entitled to copyright protection, are made generally available. Participants in the culture can modify those products and redistribute them back into the community or other organizations.
The rise of open-source culture in the 20th century resulted from a growing tension between creative practices that involve appropriation, and therefore require access to content that is often
copyrightCopyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
ed, and increasingly restrictive intellectual property laws and policies governing access to copyrighted content. The two main ways in which intellectual property laws became more restrictive in the 20th century were extensions to the term of copyright (particularly in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
) and penalties, such as those articulated in the
Digital Millennium Copyright ActThe Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization . It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to...
(DMCA), placed on attempts to circumvent anti-piracy technologies.
Although artistic appropriation is often permitted under
fair-useFair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders...
doctrines, the complexity and ambiguity of these doctrines creates an atmosphere of uncertainty among cultural practitioners. Also, the protective actions of copyright owners create what some call a "chilling effect" among cultural practitioners.
In the late 20th century, cultural practitioners began to adopt the intellectual property licensing techniques of free software and open-source software to make their work more freely available to others, including the
Creative CommonsCreative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
.
The idea of an "open-source" culture runs parallel to "
Free CultureThe free culture movement is a social movement that promotes the freedom to distribute and modify creative works in the form of free content by using the Internet and other forms of media....
," but is substantively different.
Free culture is a term derived from the
free software movementThe free software movement is a social and political movement with the goal of ensuring software users' four basic freedoms: the freedom to run their software, to study and change their software, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. The alternative terms "software libre", "open...
, and in contrast to that vision of culture, proponents of open-source culture (OSC) maintain that some intellectual property law needs to exist to protect cultural producers. Yet they propose a more nuanced position than corporations have traditionally sought. Instead of seeing intellectual property law as an expression of instrumental rules intended to uphold either natural rights or desirable outcomes, an argument for OSC takes into account diverse goods (as in "the Good life") and ends.
One way of achieving the goal of making the fixations of cultural work generally available is to maximally utilize technology and
digital mediaDigital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital form. It can refer to the technical aspect of storage and transmission Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital (as opposed to analog) form. It can refer to the technical aspect of...
. In keeping with
Moore's lawMoore's law describes a long-term trend in the history of computing hardware: the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years....
's prediction about processors, the cost of digital media and storage plummeted in the late 20th Century. Consequently, the
marginal costIn economics and finance, marginal cost is the change in total cost that arises when the quantity produced changes by one unit. That is, it is the cost of producing one more unit of a good...
of digitally duplicating anything capable of being transmitted via digital media dropped to near zero. Combined with an explosive growth in
personal computerA personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
and technology ownership, the result is an increase in general population's access to digital media. This phenomenon facilitated growth in open-source culture because it allowed for rapid and inexpensive duplication and distribution of culture. Where the access to the majority of culture produced prior to the advent of digital media was limited by other constraints of proprietary and potentially "open" mediums, digital media is the latest technology with the potential to increase access to cultural products. Artists and users who choose to distribute their work digitally face none of the physical limitations that traditional cultural producers have been typically faced with. Accordingly, the audience of an open-source culture faces little physical cost in acquiring digital media.
Open-source culture precedes
Richard StallmanRichard Matthew Stallman , often shortened to rms,"'Richard Stallman' is just my mundane name; you can call me 'rms'"|last= Stallman|first= Richard|date= N.D.|work=Richard Stallman's homepage...
's codification of free software with the creation of the
Free Software FoundationThe Free Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, a copyleft-based movement which aims to promote the universal freedom to create, distribute and modify computer software...
. As the public began to communicate through Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) like
FidoNetFidoNet is a worldwide computer network that is used for communication between bulletin board systems. It was most popular in the early to mid 1990s, prior to the introduction of easy and affordable access to the Internet...
, places like Sourcery Systems BBS were dedicated to providing source code to
Public DomainWorks are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
,
SharewareThe term shareware is a proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability, or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a compact disc included with a...
and
FreewareFreeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...
programs.
Essentially born out of a desire for increased general access to digital media,
the InternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
is open-source culture's most valuable asset. It is questionable whether the goals of an open-source culture could be achieved without the Internet. The global network not only fosters an environment where culture can be generally accessible, but also allows for easy and inexpensive redistribution of culture back into various communities. Some reasons for this are as follows.
First, the Internet allows even greater access to inexpensive digital media and storage. Instead of users being limited to their own facilities and resources, they are granted access to a vast network of facilities and resources, some free. Sites such as Archive.org offer up free web space for anyone willing to license their work under a
Creative CommonsCreative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
license. The resulting cultural product is then available to download free (generally accessible) to anyone with an Internet connection.
Second, users are granted unprecedented access to each other. Older analog technologies such as the
telephoneThe telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...
or
televisionTelevision is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
have limitations on the kind of interaction users can have. In the case of television there is little, if any interaction between users participating on the network. And in the case of the telephone, users rarely interact with any more than a couple of their known peers. On the Internet, however, users have the potential to access and meet millions of their peers. This aspect of the Internet facilitates the modification of culture as users are able to collaborate and communicate with each other across international and cultural boundaries. The speed in which digital media travels on the Internet in turn facilitates the redistribution of culture.
Through various technologies such as
peer-to-peerPeer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...
networks and blogs, cultural producers can take advantage of vast social networks to distribute their products. As opposed to traditional media distribution, redistributing digital media on the Internet can be virtually costless. Technologies such as BitTorrent and
GnutellaGnutella is a large peer-to-peer network which, at the time of its creation, was the first decentralized peer-to-peer network of its kind, leading to other, later networks adopting the model...
take advantage of various characteristics of the Internet protocol (TCP/IP) in an attempt to totally decentralize file distribution.
Government
- Open politics (sometimes known as Open-source politics) is a term used to describe a political process that uses Internet technologies such as blogs, email and polling to provide for a rapid feedback mechanism between political organizations and their supporters. There is also an alternative conception of the term Open-source politics which relates to the development of public policy under a set of rules and processes similar to the open-source software movement.
- open-source governance
Open-source governance is a political philosophy which advocates the application of the philosophies of the open-source and open-content movements to democratic principles in order to enable any interested citizen to add to the creation of policy, as with a wiki document. Legislation is...
is similar to open-source politics, but it applies more to the democratic process and promotes the freedom of information.
Ethics
Open-source ethics is split into two strands:
- Open-source ethics as an ethical school — Charles Ess and David Berry are researching whether ethics can learn anything from an open-source approach. Ess famously even defined the AoIR Research Guidelines as an example of open-source ethics.
- Open-source ethics as a professional body of rules — This is based principally on the computer ethics school, studying the questions of ethics and professionalism in the computer industry in general and software development in particular.
Media
Open-source journalismOpen source journalism, a close cousin to citizen journalism or participatory journalism, is a term coined in the title of a 1999 article by Andrew Leonard of Salon.com...
, referred to the standard journalistic techniques of news gathering and fact checking, and reflected a similar term that was in use from 1992 in military intelligence circles, open-source intelligence. It is now commonly used to describe forms of innovative publishing of
online journalismOnline journalism is defined as the reporting of facts when produced and distributed via the Internet.As of 2009, audiences for online journalism continue to grow...
, rather than the sourcing of news stories by a professional journalist. In the December 25, 2006 issue of TIME magazine this is referred to as user created content and listed alongside more traditional open-source projects such as
OpenSolarisOpenSolaris was an open source computer operating system based on Solaris created by Sun Microsystems. It was also the name of the project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around the software...
and
LinuxLinux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
.
WeblogsA blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
, or blogs, are another significant platform for open-source culture. Blogs consist of periodic, reverse chronologically ordered posts, using a technology that makes webpages easily updatable with no understanding of design, code, or
file transferFile transfer is a generic term for the act of transmitting files over a computer network or the Internet. There are numerous ways and protocols to transfer files over a network. Computers which provide a file transfer service are often called file servers. Depending on the client's perspective the...
required. While corporations, political campaigns and other formal institutions have begun using these tools to distribute information, many blogs are used by individuals for personal expression, political organizing, and socializing. Some, such as
LiveJournalLiveJournal is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal is also the name of the free and open source server software that was designed to run the LiveJournal virtual community....
or
WordPressWordPress is a free and open source blogging tool and publishing platform powered by PHP and MySQL. It is often customized into a content management system . It has many features including a plug-in architecture and a template system. WordPress is used by over 14.7% of Alexa Internet's "top 1...
, utilize open-source software that is open to the public and can be modified by users to fit their own tastes. Whether the code is open or not, this format represents a nimble tool for people to borrow and re-present culture; whereas traditional websites made the illegal reproduction of culture difficult to regulate, the mutability of blogs makes "open sourcing" even more uncontrollable since it allows a larger portion of the population to replicate material more quickly in the public sphere.
Messageboards are another platform for open-source culture. Messageboards (also known as discussion boards or forums), are places online where people with similar interests can congregate and post messages for the community to read and respond to. Messageboards sometimes have moderators who enforce community standards of etiquette such as banning users who are spammers. Other common board features are private messages (where users can send messages to one another) as well as chat (a way to have a real time conversation online) and image uploading. Some messageboards use
phpBBphpBB is a popular Internet forum package written in the PHP scripting language. The name "phpBB" is an abbreviation of PHP Bulletin Board...
, which is a free open-source package. Where blogs are more about individual expression and tend to revolve around their authors, messageboards are about creating a conversation amongst its users where information can be shared freely and quickly. Messageboards are a way to remove intermediaries from everyday life — for instance, instead of relying on commercials and other forms of advertising, one can ask other users for frank reviews of a product, movie or CD. By removing the cultural middlemen, messageboards help speed the flow of information and exchange of ideas.
OpenDocumentThe Open Document Format for Office Applications is an XML-based file format for representing electronic documents such as spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents....
is an
openAn open file format is a published specification for storing digital data, usually maintained by a standards organization, which can therefore be used and implemented by anyone. For example, an open format can be implementable by both proprietary and free and open source software, using the typical...
document file formatA document file format is a text or binary file format for storing documents on a storage media, especially for use by computers.There currently exist a multitude of incompatible document file formats....
for saving and exchanging editable office documents such as text documents (including memos, reports, and books),
spreadsheetA spreadsheet is a computer application that simulates a paper accounting worksheet. It displays multiple cells usually in a two-dimensional matrix or grid consisting of rows and columns. Each cell contains alphanumeric text, numeric values or formulas...
s, charts, and presentations. Organizations and individuals that store their data in an open format such as OpenDocument avoid being
locked intoIn economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products and services, unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs...
a single software vendor, leaving them free to switch software if their current vendor goes out of business, raises their prices, changes their software, or changes their licensing terms to something less favorable.
Open-source movie production is either an open call system in which a changing crew and cast collaborate in movie production, a system in which the end result is made available for re-use by others or in which exclusively open-source products are used in the production. The 2006 movie
Elephants DreamElephants Dream is a computer-generated short film that was produced almost completely using the free software 3D suite Blender . It premiered on March 24, 2006, after about 8 months of work...
is said to be the "world's first open movie", created entirely using open-source technology.
An open-source documentary film has a production process allowing the open contributions of archival material,
footageIn filmmaking and video production, footage is the raw, unedited material as it had been originally filmed by movie camera or recorded by a video camera which usually must be edited to create a motion picture, video clip, television show or similar completed work...
, and other filmic elements, both in unedited and edited form. By doing so, on-line contributors become part of the process of creating the film, helping to influence the editorial and visual material to be used in the documentary, as well as its thematic development. The first open-source documentary film is the non-profit "The American Revolution," which went into production in 2005, and will examine the role media played in the cultural, social and political changes from 1968 to 1974 through the story of radio station WBCN-FM in Boston. The film is being produced by Lichtenstein Creative Media and the non-profit Filmmakers Collaborative.
Open Source Cinema is a website to create Basement Tapes, a feature documentary about copyright in the digital age, co-produced by the
National Film Board of Canada.
Open-source film-makingOpen-source films are films which are produced and distributed by using free and open-source software methodologies...
refers to a form of film-making that takes a method of idea formation from open-source software, but in this case the 'source' for a film-maker is raw unedited footage rather than programming code. It can also refer to a method of film-making where the process of creation is 'open' i.e. a disparate group of contributors, at different times contribute to the final piece.
Open-IPTV is
IPTVInternet Protocol television is a system through which television services are delivered using the Internet protocol suite over a packet-switched network such as the Internet, instead of being delivered through traditional terrestrial, satellite signal, and cable television formats.IPTV services...
that is not limited to one recording studio, production studio, or cast. Open-IPTV uses the Internet or other means to pool efforts and resources together to create an online community that all contributes to a show.
Education
Within the academic community, there is discussion about expanding what could be called the "intellectual commons" (analogous to the
Creative CommonsCreative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons...
). Proponents of this view have hailed the
ConnexionsConnexions is a global repository of educational content provided by Rice University. The entire collection is available free of charge, and students and learners alike can explore all the content they desire....
Project at
Rice UniversityWilliam Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University or Rice, is a private research university located on a heavily wooded campus in Houston, Texas, United States...
,
OpenCourseWareMIT OpenCourseWare is an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to put all of the educational materials from its undergraduate- and graduate-level courses online, partly free and openly available to anyone, anywhere. MIT OpenCourseWare is a large-scale, web-based publication of...
project at
MITThe Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
,
Eugene ThackerEugene Thacker is an author and associate professor at The New School in New York. Thacker is known for his work in philosophy, media theory, and the study of genre horror and science fiction. In addition to his writing on science and technology, Thacker has written on the work of Georges Bataille,...
's article on "open-source DNA", the "Open Source Cultural Database",
Salman KhanSalman Amin 'Sal' Khan is an American educator and the founder of the Khan Academy, a free online education platform and nonprofit organization....
's Khan Academy and
WikipediaWikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
as examples of applying open source outside the realm of computer software.
Open-source curriculaAn open source curriculum is an online instructional resource that can be freely used, distributed and modified. OSC is based on the open source practice of creating products or software that opens up access to source materials or codes...
are instructional resources whose digital source can be freely used, distributed and modified.
Another strand to the academic community is in the area of research. Many funded research projects produce software as part of their work. There is an increasing interest in making the outputs of such projects available under an open-source license. In the UK the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has developed a policy on open source software. JISC also funds a development service called
OSS WatchOSS Watch is the United Kingdom's advisory service for issues relating to free and open source software in the Further Education and Higher Education sectors. Since 2003 it has provided consultations and briefing materials about the legal, social, technical and economic aspects of open source...
which acts as an advisory service for higher and further education institutions wishing to use, contribute to and develop open source software.
Innovation communities
The principle of sharing pre-dates the open-source movement; for example, the free sharing of information has been institutionalized in the scientific enterprise since at least the 19th century. Open-source principles have always been part of the scientific community. The sociologist
Robert K. MertonRobert King Merton was a distinguished American sociologist. He spent most of his career teaching at Columbia University, where he attained the rank of University Professor...
described the four basic elements of the community — universalism (an international perspective), communalism (sharing information), disinterestedness (removing one's personal views from the scientific inquiry) and organized skepticism (requirements of proof and review) that accurately describe the scientific community today. These principles are, in part, complemented by US law's focus on protecting expression and method but not the ideas themselves. There is also a tradition of publishing research results to the scientific community instead of keeping all such knowledge proprietary. One of the recent initiatives in scientific publishing has been open access — the idea that research should be published in such a way that it is free and available to the public. There are currently many open access journals where the information is available free online, however most journals do charge a fee (either to users or libraries for access). The Budapest Open Access Initiative is an international effort with the goal of making all research articles available free on the Internet. The
National Institutes of HealthThe National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
has recently proposed a policy on "Enhanced Public Access to NIH Research Information." This policy would provide a free, searchable resource of NIH-funded results to the public and with other international repositories six months after its initial publication. The NIH's move is an important one because there is significant amount of public funding in scientific research. Many of the questions have yet to be answered — the balancing of profit vs. public access, and ensuring that desirable standards and incentives do not diminish with a shift to open access.
Farmavita.Net is a community of pharmaceuticals executives that has recently proposed a new business model of open-source pharmaceuticals. The project is targeted to development and sharing of know-how for manufacture of essential and life-saving medicines. It is mainly dedicated to the countries with less developed economies where local pharmaceutical research and development resources are insufficient for national needs. It will be limited to generic (off-patent) medicines with established use. By the definition, medicinal product have a “well-established use” if is used for at least 15 years, with recognized efficacy and an acceptable level of safety. In that event, the expensive clinical test and trial results could be replaced by appropriate scientific literature.
Benjamin FranklinDr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
was an early contributor eventually donating all his inventions including the
Franklin stoveThe Franklin stove is a metal-lined fireplace named after its inventor, Benjamin Franklin. It was invented in 1741.L.W. Labaree, W. Bell, W.B. Willcox, et al., eds., The Papers of Benjamin Franklin , vol. 2, page 419...
,
bifocalsBifocals are eyeglasses with two distinct optical powers. Bifocals are most commonly prescribed to people with presbyopia who also require a correction for myopia, hyperopia, and/or astigmatism.-History:...
, and the
lightning rodA lightning rod or lightning conductor is a metal rod or conductor mounted on top of a building and electrically connected to the ground through a wire, to protect the building in the event of lightning...
to the public domain.
New NGO communities are starting to use the open-source technology as a tool. One example is the Open Source Youth Network started in 2007 in Lisboa by ISCA members.
Open innovationAlthough the idea and discussion about some consequences date back at least to the 60s, open innovation is a term promoted by Henry Chesbrough, a professor and executive director at the Center for Open Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley, in his book Open Innovation: The new...
is also a new emerging concept which advocate putting R&D in a common pool. The
EclipseEclipse is a multi-language software development environment comprising an integrated development environment and an extensible plug-in system...
platform is openly presenting itself as an Open innovation network.
Arts and recreation
Copyright protection is used in the performing arts and even in athletic activities. Some groups have attempted to remove copyright from such practices.
Lists
Terms based on open source
- Open-source-appropriate technology
Open-source appropriate technology refers to technologies that are designed in the same fashion as free and open-source software. These technologies must be "appropriate technology" – meaning technology that is designed with special consideration to the environmental, ethical, cultural, social,...
- Open-source governance
Open-source governance is a political philosophy which advocates the application of the philosophies of the open-source and open-content movements to democratic principles in order to enable any interested citizen to add to the creation of policy, as with a wiki document. Legislation is...
- Open-source hardware
- Open Source Initiative
The Open Source Initiative is an organization dedicated to promoting open source software.The organization was founded in February 1998, by Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond, prompted by Netscape Communications Corporation publishing the source code for its flagship Netscape Communicator product...
- Open-source license
An open-source license is a copyright license for computer software that makes the source code available for everyone to use. This allows end users to review and modify the source code for their own customization and/or troubleshooting needs...
- Open-source political campaign
Open-source political campaigns, open-source politics, or Politics 2.0, is the idea that social networking and e-participation technologies will revolutionize our ability to follow, support, and influence political campaigns...
- Open-source record label
Open source record labels are a reaction against what some musicians see as corporate control of music via means of copyright. They believe that creativity requires that musicians reappropriate and reinterpret music and sounds to enable them to create truly innovative music.Open source record...
- Open-source religion
Open-source religions attempt to employ open-source methodologies in the creation of religious belief systems. They develop their systems of beliefs through a continuous process of refinement and dialogue among the believers themselves...
- Open-source robotics
An open-source robot is a robot whose blueprints, schematics or source code are released under an open-source model.-Full robot projects:*, Open Hardware Medical-Research liquid handling robot*, Mobile Telepresence Research Project, Est...
- Open-source software
Open-source software is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.Open...
- Open sourcing
Other
- Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution
Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution is a book published by O'Reilly Media. It is an anthology of essays written by luminaries of the open source and free software movements...
(book)
- Business models for open source software
There are several different types of business models for making profit using open source software .- Introduction :Open source software can be sold and used commercially. It is a part of the software industry. The financial return on open source software can also come from selling services, such...
- Collaborative intelligence
Collaborative intelligence is a term used in several disciplines, and has several different meanings. In a business setting, it can describe the result of accessing a network of people...
- Commons-based peer production
Commons-based peer production is a term coined by Harvard Law School professor Yochai Benkler to describe a new model of socio-economic production in which the creative energy of large numbers of people is coordinated into large, meaningful projects mostly without traditional hierarchical...
- Commercial open-source applications
Open source software is widely used for private and non-commercial applications. In addition, many independent software vendors , value-added resellers , and hardware vendors use open source frameworks, modules, and libraries inside their proprietary, for-profit products and services...
- Community source
Community Source is a term that has different meanings based on context and the community where it is used.-Community Source as a Type of Open Source Community:...
- Digital freedom
- Diseconomy of scale
- Embrace, extend and extinguish
"Embrace, extend and extinguish," also known as "Embrace, extend and exterminate," is a phrase that the U.S. Department of Justice found was used internally by Microsoft to describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with...
- Free Beer
Free beer may refer to:*Gratis versus Libre, the distinction between "free as in free beer" and "free as in free speech"*Free Beer, an open source beer formerly known as Vores Øl, Danish for Our Beer...
- Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
- Gift economy
In the social sciences, a gift economy is a society where valuable goods and services are regularly given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards . Ideally, simultaneous or recurring giving serves to circulate and redistribute valuables within the community...
- Glossary of legal terms in technology
- Halloween Documents
The Halloween documents comprise a series of confidential Microsoft memoranda on potential strategies relating to free software, open-source software, and to Linux in particular, and a series of responses to these memoranda...
- Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
- Network effect
In economics and business, a network effect is the effect that one user of a good or service has on the value of that product to other people. When network effect is present, the value of a product or service is dependent on the number of others using it.The classic example is the telephone...
- Open access (publishing)
- Open content
Open content or OpenContent is a neologism coined by David Wiley in 1998 which describes a creative work that others can copy or modify. The term evokes open source, which is a related concept in software....
- Open data
Open data is the idea that certain data should be freely available to everyone to use and republish as they wish, without restrictions from copyright, patents or other mechanisms of control. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "Open" movements such as open source, open...
- Open design
Open design is the development of physical products, machines and systems through use of publicly shared design information. The process is generally facilitated by the Internet and often performed without monetary compensation...
- Open format
An open file format is a published specification for storing digital data, usually maintained by a standards organization, which can therefore be used and implemented by anyone. For example, an open format can be implementable by both proprietary and free and open source software, using the typical...
- Open implementation
In computing, open implementation platforms are systems where the implementation is accessible. Open implementation allows developers of a program to alter pieces of the underlying software to fit their specific needs...
- Open innovation
Although the idea and discussion about some consequences date back at least to the 60s, open innovation is a term promoted by Henry Chesbrough, a professor and executive director at the Center for Open Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley, in his book Open Innovation: The new...
- Open JDK
- Open research
Open research is research conducted in the spirit of free and open source software. Much like open source schemes that are built around a source code that is made public, the central theme of open research is to make clear accounts of the methodology freely available via the internet, along with...
- Open security
Open security is an initiative to approach application security challenges using open source philosophies and methodologies. Traditional application security is based on the premise that any application or service relies on security through obscurity.On the developer side, legitimate software and...
- Open Solaris
- Open vs. closed source
Open source - the source availability model used by free and open source software - and closed source are two approaches to the distribution of software.- Background :Under the closed source model source code is not released to the public...
- Open system (computing)
Open systems are computer systems that provide some combination of interoperability, portability, and open software standards. The term was popularized in the early 1980s, mainly to describe systems based on Unix,...
- Open standard
An open standard is a standard that is publicly available and has various rights to use associated with it, and may also have various properties of how it was designed . There is no single definition and interpretations vary with usage....
- OpenDWG
- Openness
Openness is the quality of being open. It sometimes refers to a very general philosophical position from which some individuals and organizations operate, often highlighted by a decision-making process recognizing communal management by distributed stakeholders rather than a centralized authority...
- Shared software
Shared software is a different term used to describe free software and open source software, and possibly also software that is not formally covered by the definition of either, but that is in some other way shared rather than owned...
- Shared source
Shared source is an umbrella term covering some of Microsoft's legal mechanisms for software source code distribution. Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative, launched in May 2001, includes a spectrum of technologies and licenses...
- Vendor lock-in
In economics, vendor lock-in, also known as proprietary lock-in or customer lock-in, makes a customer dependent on a vendor for products and services, unable to use another vendor without substantial switching costs...
Further reading
Literature on legal and economic aspects
- Berry, D. M. & Moss, G. (2008). Libre Culture: Meditations on Free Culture. Canada: Pygmalion Books. (in Adobe PDF
Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
format)
- Bitzer, J. & Schröder, P. J.H. (2005): "The Impact of Entry and Competition by Open Source Software on Innovation Activity", Industrial Organization 0512001, EconWPA. (in Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
PDFPortable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
format)
- v. Engelhardt, S. (2008): "The Economic Properties of Software", Jena Economic Research Papers, Volume 2 (2008), Number 2008-045. (in Adobe PDF
Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
format)
- v. Engelhardt, S. (2008): "Intellectual Property Rights and Ex-Post Transaction Costs: the Case of Open and Closed Source Software", Jena Economic Research Papers 2008-047. (in Adobe PDF
Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
format)
- v. Engelhardt, S. & Swaminathan, S. (2008): "Open Source Software, Closed Source Software or Both: Impacts on Industry Growth and the Role of Intellectual Property Rights", Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 799. (in Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
PDFPortable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
format)
- European Commission. (2006). Economic impact of open source software on innovation and the competitiveness of the Information and Communication Technologies sector in the EU. Brussels.
- Feller, J., Fitzgerald, B. & Hissam, S. A. (eds.), (2005): Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software, MIT Press. earlier revision (PDF) earlier revision (PDF)
- Rossi, M. A. (2006): Decoding the free/open source software puzzle: A survey of theoretical and empirical contributions, in J. Bitzer P. Schröder, eds, ‘The Economics of Open Source Software Development’, p 15–55. (download an online version) (in Adobe PDF
Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
format) earlier revision
External links
- The Changelog, a podcast and blog that covers what's fresh and new in Open Source (essentially covering "the changelog" of open source projects)
- An open-source shot in the arm? The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
, Jun 10th 2004,
- SVForum Distinguished Speaker talks on Open Source Software by Guido van Rossum, Howard Rheingold, and Bruce Perens, 2005.
- SVForum Global Open Source, March 24, 2008
- Calendar of Open Source Events and Conferences World Wide
- Machine Learning Open Source Software
- Google-O'Reilly Open Source Awards
- QualiPSo European Initiative