Open-source model

The previous open source article now exists at open-source software. This article is being rewritten to define the broader scope of open source and needs help with content that is more about the environment of open source and its history.

Open source, regarded by some as a philosophy and by others a pragmatic methodology, relates to practices in the production of products which promote access to their sources. Developers and producers used many different phrases or jargon words before the open source label became widely adopted, as the early Internet years provided a rapid convergence of very diverse production models. With the increase of interactive communities and their direct involvement with the Internet, open-source software yielded the most prominent society of open source. Even though Internet started in 1969 with open standards like the RFCs, it wasn't until 1998 that open source became a label to denote to software the same effort which began the Internet. The open source model allows different agendas and approaches used in production and contrasts with the more isolated models.

History

Since the early 1960s most software was developed in an open source manner, where code was readily given out between users in order to better the experience for all users.

In 1985 an open source group called the Free Software Foundation began its campaign of using the word free to mean "free as in free speech," and not "free as in free beer," when referring to software. Since a great deal of free software already was (and still is) free of charge, such free software became associated with zero cost, which seemed anti-commercial.

In 1998 the term "open source" was decided upon in a strategy session held in reaction to Netscape's announcement of a source code release called Mozilla. The term was used to clarify a potential confusion caused by the ambiguity of the word "free" in the English language. This is often considered the birth of the open source movement and many consider the term to have been coined within the strategy session. None the less, many people claim that the birth of the Internet started the open source movement, while others consider open source to predate networks entirely, to the times when software was developed and passed about between academics freely. Later that year the Open Source Initiative formed and began using the term Open Source to describe software which followed it's own tenents of openness, the Open Source Definition.

Also in 1998, critics attacked the term "open source" citing that it fosters an ambiguity of a different kind; that it confuses the mere the availability of the source with the freedom to use, modify, and redistribute it. Some software developers then began to use the terms Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) or Free/Libre/Open-Source Software (FLOSS) to describe open-source software that is freely available and free of charge.

Influenced fields

Software is not the only field effected by open source, many fields of study and social and political views have been effected by the growth of the concept of open source. Advocates in one field will often support the expansion of open source in other fields, including Linus Torvalds who is quoted as saying, "the future is 'open source everything.'"

The open source movement has been the inspiration for increased transparency and liberty in other fields. For example the release of biotechnology research by CAMBIA, and the encyclopedia named Wikipedia. The open-source concept has also been applied to media other than computer programs, e.g., by Creative Commons. It also constitutes an example of user innovation (see for example the book Democratizing Innovation).

Open Cola is another idea inspired by the open source movement. Soft drink giants like Coke and Pepsi hold their formulas closely guarded secrets. Now volunteers have posted the recipe for a similar soda drink on the internet. The taste is said to be comparable to that of the standard beverages.

There is also an open-source beer recipe called Vores Øl. Following its release, an article in Wired magazine commented that "as open source spreads beyond software to online encyclopedias like Wikipedia and biological research, it was only a matter of time before somebody created an open-source beer". [1]

There have also been several excellent proposals for open source pharmaceutical development, like this one, 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. All of these projects attempt to address the fact that for-profit pharmaceutical companies have little incentive to develop drugs to treat diseases like Malaria, which primarily affect populations that lack the economic resources to purchase such drugs if they were in fact brought to market. Virtual pharmas and open source pharmaceutical initiatives attempt to solve this problem by transferring the cost-intensive research-and-development phase to a community of researchers who design drugs for free (in the open source model) or at well below market rates (in the not-for-profit model). In theory this then allows for-profit pharmaceutical companies to manufacture and distribute drugs thus developed, because there is no R&D cost to recoup. In the open source model, drugs developed in this manner would be covered by something similar to the GPL, which would allow pharmaceutical companies to manufacture and sell the drug, but prevent them from claiming any intellectual property rights.

Trivia

The 2001 film Antitrust portrayed the struggle of a small group of open-source software programmers against a large Microsoft-like closed-source corporation.

Open-source model

History

Influenced fields

Trivia

See also

Related topics

External links