Introduction : Open Source Software

Introduction: Open Source Software

In this 21^st century software’s plays an important role in every field whether it is education, business or IT, but if a software is free, isn't  this amazing? Absolutely, keeping this thing in mind in 1998, a group associated with free software introduced the term “open source”.

Open source software is software that users have the ability to run, distribute, study and modify for any purpose. Open source is a collaborative software development method that harnesses the power of peer review and transparency of process to develop code that is freely
accessible. Open source draws on an ecosystem of thousands of developers and customers all over the world to drive innovation. Because, it is free to use, redistribute and modify, Source code is available to anyone, generally there are free of charge. A report by the Standish Group (from 2008) states that adoption of open-source software models has resulted in savings of about $60 billion per year to consumers. Libraries and Open Source Both: Believe that information should be freely accessible to everyone, Give away stuff, Benefit from the generosity of others; Make the world a better place. As consumers why do we care: Competition is good.  Why do care as industry:  Respect third party right, Maintain control over own IP, Flexibility of licensing and revenue models. Also Government of various countries Turning to OSS: Brazil, China, US. Navy, France, Cuba, India, Holland, Germany: in order to  replace pirated copies, Avoid reliance on commercial developers, Perceived security . Examples :Linux, Apache,  Oracle Corporation and IBM participated in developing free and open-source software . Influence of Open-Source Software : As a reliable open-source alternative to UNIX, Linux is putting pressure on companies selling proprietary versions of UNIX. Linux is also putting pressure on Microsoft and Apple, which sell proprietary operating systems for desktop systems. Microsoft respect and appreciate the important role, the passion and the great contribution that open source software plays in our industry .

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_software

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