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| General Questions on Open Source |
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O.K. So you have come to find out what the Open Source thing is all about. That's a good start! The following is a list of questions and, hopefully useful, answers that should give you a good basic understanding of this Open Source phenomenon. They are, currently, in no particular order. What does Open Source really mean? To quote from the OSI, Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in. Clear? Our own explanation is a little less esoteric: Open Source is both a method of production and a movement or community and they are very closely tied to each other. If you don't have a community behind an Open Source project then you only have a (almost stationary) free product at the end of it (and that is the end of it). If you have a community but they don't follow an Open production methodology then you will probably never end up with a product as no-one will be able to agree on licensing/IP or ownership issues. The Open Source development method is truly evolutionary (in the Darwinian sense) with small changes occurring at random intervals. The best alterations survive and continue to evolve with the product. Projects with limited take-up and/or community activity either die or fork (fork e.d. link to another faq!) into something more sustainable. Open Source software production has proved itself to be an incredibly robust mechanism leading to stable, secure products that have features and benefits which users themselves want - not what a marketing department decided would be "cool" or would fit in budget and/or release cycle deadlines. We could go on and on here but if you want know more, the best thing to do is some digging around the 'net. The Wikipedia is always a good place to start; itself an Open Source project run on Open Source software. What do OS, OSS, FOSS and FLOSS mean then? It's simple really:
So is Open Source "FREE" then? Free as in "free beer" or free as in "freedom"? Sorry, shouldn't answer a FAQ with another question now should we! Although the cost of Open Source software is generally zero, there is no stipulation that it must be so. Many organisations sell Open Source software products for hard cash and the purchaser normally gets support services or nicely "packaged" solutions as a result. The true meaning of Open Source is free as in freedom (Us Europeans like to use the term "libre" to differentiate) to copy, modify, and re-distribute as you wish with no usage restrictions. Where can I get Open Source software? From many places. For example, over 150,000 Open Source software projects are hosted on an Internet site called Sourceforge.net. Many of the larger projects have their own dedicated websites such as, the Linux Kernel, Apache.org, most major Linux distributions and countless others.
Finding the right project/application for your business can be difficult and time-consuming. That is where organisations like ours come in. The Open Learning Centre can help by pre-selecting and implementing the most appropriate solutions for your business. After all, your business is probably not about Open Source software - is it? |
| Last Updated on Friday, 25 July 2008 15:02 |
