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Definitions and Historical development of Open Source Software

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) can be available commercially or as non-commercial software. The “free” in open source software refers to the Free Software Foundation's (www.fsf.org ) definition of 'What is Free Software'. The freedoms at the core of free software are defined as:

1. The freedom to run the software for any purpose;
2. The freedom to study how the software works and adapt it to your needs;
3. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others; and
4. The freedom to improve the software and release your improvements to the public, so that everyone benefits.

Originally hardware was the major revenue stream for most of the Computer Vendors. From the early 1960s to the early 1980s, revenues in computer business were generated through selling and supporting hardware. For every hardware device, a special operating system was developed and deployed. The users of these systems were highly specialised IT experts. They were the ones primarily responsible for the development of additional software.

Many efforts were dedicated to build an operating system that could be deployed on multiple hardware platforms. The most prominent example was Unix, which developed at the AT&T Laboratories and was published in 1969. Commercial users had to pay high license fees for using Unix, whereas academic institutions could use the software for a nominal charge. Consequently, Unix was the basis for the development of the Internet technologies. Many of these technologies were developed at universities and computer companies research laboratories, where Unix was deployed. Sharing the source code among software developers was commonplace. This tendency was reinforced by the emergence of computer networks like the Usenet that was started in 1979 to link the Unix community.

A critical event in the early 1980s for cooperative software development was the turnaround in AT&T’s licensing policy. Unix became restricted to those who paid for the license to use is. Following this first step into the direction of closed source, the hardware companies IBM, HP and DEC started to develop proprietary Unix operating systems. They imposed “non-disclosure agreements” on the programmers dealing with the software and recruited many developers for commercial software development who had formerly contributed to cooperative and shared software development.

At that time, the programmer Richard Stallman worked in software development at the MIT. In 1984, he started a project to develop a free alternative of the Unix operating system. In addition, he established a special license, the GNU (named for Gnu’sNot Unix) license, which was supposed to ensure that the software is indeed free and open for everyone. In order to support the GNU project, Stallman founded the Free Software Foundation (FSF) in 1985. Although linked often to the Open Source movement, Stallman is a proponent of Free Software, which goes much further in its demands (See here). Nevertheless, the GNU General Public License (GPL, see “Licenses”) is central to the evolution of the Open Source phenomenon and has been used in many important projects. In the GPL, the principle of “Copyleft” is realised: It means that every copy of a program governed by the GPL, even if modified, must be subject to the GPL again.

The FSF’s philosophy behind software development provided great motivation for the Free Software community. But it also resulted in antipathy from many businesses which partly remains until today. The most prominent debate over the implications of Open Source Software, especially the GPL, and its effects on innovation takes place between Microsoft and Free/Open Source Software advocates, although such discussions are commonplace in more prosaic settings as well.

In the early 1990s, along with the increasing use of the Internet and the success of the World Wide Web, many new Open Source projects emerged. The most prominent example is Linux. Linux is a Unix-like operating system targeted to run on a personal computer. It was developed by the Finnish computer science student Linus Torvalds who used the GNU software tools. In 1991, he released the code of an experimental version under the GPL to a newsgroup and asked for comments and improvements.

Within the last decade, Linux developed into a powerful operating system. The project showed characteristics that are typical for successful Open Source Software development over the Internet. Eric Raymond, another central OSS developer and advocate, describes OSS development coordination as “Bazaar style,” opposed to the “Cathedral” approach taken in classical software development, where development is organised in a more hierarchic, top-down and planned way. Linux has a modular structure, so individuals or groups of developers can focus on one part of the program. The principle of “Release often, release early” in combination with a constant peer-reviewing process (“Given a thousand eyes all bugs are shallow”) is also opposed to commercial software development.

Linux was used increasingly in combination with the GNU tools. Because the operating system is central to IT infrastructure, it eventually became relevant for business use. In 1997, the Open Source Initiative (OSI) was founded in order to establish a more pragmatic approach to software licensing. The OSI was based on the “Debian Free Software Guidelines,” which had been published in 1995. The central people for this development were Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens. Their aim was to promote OSS in commercial use because they believed that both the Free/Open Source community and the business world could benefit from wider OSS dissemination.

The OSI developed the Open Source Definition (OSD). The definition (See here ) is not a license itself, but a guideline and trademark for OSS software licenses other than the GPL. Licenses according to the OSD guarantee several freedoms to software users, including commercial users. The “viral” effect of the GPL is not a requirement for OSD-approved licenses. In order to raise acceptance of OSS in the business world, the term Open Source Software instead of Free Software was established and widely accepted.

The 1990s experienced a significant rise in attention paid to Open Source projects. Many companies from the IT industry began to support the projects. IBM, for example, supports a variety of Open Source projects. In 1998, Netscape was the first prominent company to release a proprietary software product as Open Source software.

This trend has continued to grow with the rise of successful linux distributions for the desktop. Both Open Source and Free Software continue to enjoy growing success and wide recognition. While some refer to free and open source as competing movements with different ends, the author of this guide does not see free and open source software as either distinct or incompatible. According to Wired Open Source Census Research:

1. Ubuntu (45%) and Debian (14%) are the most used Linux distributions among participants with Linux machines
2. More than half of the open source software found has been on Windows machines
3. The number of unique installed open source packages ranged from 22-62 per machine

These trends have been noted out by other researchers. This could be an indicator of the varied number of people who use Free and Open Source Software. Looking into the crystal ball to forecast the future is difficult on many domains, but specifically in the fast moving Open Source domain. It is expected that continuous consolidation and convergence of multiple technologies will happen with the commercial software vendor creating room for successful open source vendors. Open Source adoption in the enterprise will continue, in the application infrastructure space the use of Open Source is already common sense, but more and more Open Source solutions will be viable candidates also for typical business solution domains. Web 2.0 will continue and shall accelerate the adoption of Open Source in the Enterprise even more. More commercially available products will be based on Open Source software. New open standards such as Open Social or Google Android will be the base of many new Open Source project and initiatives.

Types of Computer Software Forms

Software can be defined as of four different forms as summarized in the table below:

A brief description of the various forms of Software is provided below:

1. The classical proprietary/commercial software: This is software that is typically distributed in binary form only. The source code is not available.
2. Shareware: Software that is typically free for an initial period, but generally would require a license to be bought after testing. The source code is not available. Freeware on the other hand has no license fee at all, at least not for the freeware but maybe for a complementary product. The source code is not available.
3. Non Commercial Open Source Software: No license fee at all. The source code of this software is available. Users can use the Software & Freely Redistribute it.
4. Commercial Open Source: This is software that one is required to pay for access to the source code.

This work is licenced under a Creative Commons - By Attribution Licence - Share Alike License.