Open Source
"A program is said to be open source if the full source code for the program is available publicly, with no constraints on how it can be used. That's it. We've looked at so many other possibilities, I've even discussed it publicly with Stallman, and he agrees that his philosophy is not open source, because there are constraints on what you can do with his code."
- Dave Winer [1]
Definition
Definition from the Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source
"Open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's sources. Some consider it as a philosophy, and others consider it as a pragmatic methodology. Before open source became widely adopted, developers and producers used a variety of phrases to describe the concept; the term open source gained popularity with the rise of the Internet and its enabling of diverse production models, communication paths, and interactive communities.[1] Subsequently, open source software became the most prominent face of open source."
The term is officially defined by the Open Source Initiative at http://www.opensource.org/
Rob Myers:
"Yochai Benkler describes Open Source as a methodology of commons based peer production. This means work made collaboratively and shared publicly by a community of equals. For Eric Raymond the virtue of Open Source is its efficiency. Open Source can create better products faster than the old closed source model. Many of the most successful software programs in use today, particularly on the internet, are Open Source." (http://www.anat.org.au/stillopen/blog/2007/08/19/open-source-ideologies/)
Applications
Discussion
Rob Myers:
"Yochai Benkler describes Open Source as a methodology of commons based peer production. This means work made collaboratively and shared publicly by a community of equals. For Eric Raymond the virtue of Open Source is its efficiency. Open Source can create better products faster than the old closed source model. Many of the most successful software programs in use today, particularly on the internet, are Open Source.
Applying the ideas of Open Source to other projects, be they political, philosophical or artistic, is more difficult than it might seem. The idea of Open Source as a more efficient means of production has nothing to say about what Open Source politics or art should be like.
To take the example of the Open Congress event at Tate Modern, artists struggled to find an Open Source ideology to apply to their art, activists struggled to find an Open Source ideology to apply to their organisations, and theorists grinned and invoked Deleuze and Spinoza to cover the gaps.
This confusion is not a problem with the idea of Open Source. Rather it is the intended result of it. The name Open Source was deliberately chosen for its meaninglessness and ideological vacuity. This was intended to make the results of a very strong ideology more palatable to large corporations by disguising its origins. That ideology is Free Software.
Free Software is a set of principles designed to protect the freedom of individuals to use computer software. It emerged in the 1980s against a backdrop of increasing restrictions on the use and production of software. Free Software can therefore be understood historically and ethically as the defence of freedom against a genuine threat.
Once software users freedoms are protected the methodology that we know as Open Source becomes possible and its advantages become apparent. But without the guiding principles of Free Software the neccessity and direction of Open Source cannot be accounted for. Open Source has no history or trajectory, it cannot account for itself or suggest which tasks are neccessary or important. Free Software requires freedom, which is a practical goal to pursue.
Free Software is a historical development, a set of principles, and a set of possibilities. Free Software projects have converged on the methodology that Raymond describes as Open Source because of this. To describe this methodology as commons based peer production causes further confusion. There are no peers in a Free Software project. If contributions are deemed to be of acceptable quality, they are added to the project by its appointed gatekeepers. If not, they are rejected and advice given. This methodology is a structured and exclusive one, but it is meritocratic. Any contribution of sufficient quality can be accepted, and if someone makes enough such contributions they themselves may gain the trust required to become a gatekeeper."
(http://www.anat.org.au/stillopen/blog/2007/08/19/open-source-ideologies/)
Dave Winer [2]]:
"A program is said to be open source if the full source code for the program is available publicly, with no constraints on how it can be used. That's it. We've looked at so many other possibilities, I've even discussed it publicly with Stallman, and he agrees that his philosophy is not open source, because there are constraints on what you can do with his code." (http://www.softpanorama.org/OSS/webliography.shtml)
Dave Winer [3]:
"Open source should not have restrictions. Stallman's philosophy is not open source, it's not the spirit of sharing, it's not generous. It has other purposes, it's designed to create a wall between commercial development and free development. The world is not that simple. There are plenty of commercial developers who participate in open source." (http://www.softpanorama.org/OSS/webliography.shtml)
Status Report on Open Source Adoption 2007
From Andrew Burger [4] :
Key Corporate Players
"Here's an off-the-cuff list of 10 products, services or categories of open source-related tools gaining traction in the corporate world:
1. Linux: IBM, HP, Oracle, Sun, Dell, Novell and Microsoft support it, as do original pioneers such as Red Hat;
2. Mozilla's Firefox: The open source Web browser has quickly vaulted into the ranks of top competitors to Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and the company isn't stopping there, having launched a series of open source applications;
3. Wikipedia: The open source encyclopedia is perhaps the archetypal application of open source as a means of organizing collective knowledge, becoming a standard reference for who knows how many;
4. Application Development: Ajax and Apache have led the way in providing the tools to develop native, open source Web applications and services;
5. Service-Oriented Architecture: SOA is emerging as an open standards-based framework for developing, deploying and managing Web and on-demand application services, contributing to the emergence of the Software as a Service model of deploying, hosting and distributing them.
6. Virtualization: In a short period of time, virtualization Learn how SAN/iQ technology works with VMware. has had a major impact on the server side of the hardware market and helped revitalize the mainframe business. Citrix's recent acquisition of XenSource and its open source Xen Hypervisor make the point;
7. Peer-to-Peer Networking: Decentralized, open source P2P projects, such as Gnutella, just won't go away -- and that's because their applications -- including grid computing and, ironically, enterprise security -- extend well beyond the illegal sharing of digital music and film files;
8. Voice over Internet Protocol: The open source Asterisk platform is coming into its own and is increasingly being used, in one form or another, by corporations making the move to IP voice services;
9. Desktop Applications: Open source, networked office application software -- like that set out for electronic documents in the ISO-approved Open Document Format for XML, or Open XML, for which Microsoft is seeking ISO approval -- is gaining adherents. It is set to be a major battleground as competitors attempt to steal some of Microsoft's thunder. Witness Mozillla introducing open source e-mail, a mobile device browser and bug-tracking applications, along with an application suite -- not to mention Google and Sun announcing that they are now ready to collaborate on the latter's StarOffice productivity suite;
10. Virtual Worlds: They became a reality with the launch and still growing popularity of Second Life, a virtual world where the value of theoretically unlimited real estate is nonetheless increasing rapidly." (http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/9KMRNBq3L8g6gz/Open-Source-Changing-Models-Changing-Mindsets-Part-1.xhtml)
Open Source Servers
"To get a sense of the scope of open source adoption, the number of servers running on Linux operating systems grew at double-digit rates, to 12.7 percent, for a US$1.6 billion share of the total market during this year's first quarter, according to IDC. Those figures very likely underestimate the actual prevalence of Linux, as they are based on sales Email Marketing Software - Free Demo of Linux-based servers and do not include free software downloads -- the original and perhaps still largest means of distribution.
IBM reached an open source milestone recently when it recognized the one-millionth download of its WebSphere Application Server Community Edition (WAS CE). The product, IBM's Carter told LinuxInsider, is one of the most significant open source products to make an impact in the corporate world.
Free to download and use, WAS CE provides a flexible foundation for developing Java applications. Technical support is offered through annual subscriptions, Carter said, a business model that open source pioneers such as Red Hat have used to capitalize on their work with the Linux kernel. WAS CE is based on Apache Geronimo, comes with full Java EE 5 standard support, and is one result of IBM's May 2005 acquisition of Gluecode." (http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/9KMRNBq3L8g6gz/Open-Source-Changing-Models-Changing-Mindsets-Part-1.xhtml)
May be updated at Open Source Servers
Open Source VoIP
"Asterisk-based VoIP applications and appliances have been downloaded by business phone system Stay on budget with simple to install HP server technology. users more than 4.4 million times, implying millions of users, according to Digium, whose founder, Mark Spencer, started what has grown to become Asterisk's globe-spanning open source project collaboration.
Following his founding of Linux Support Services in 1999 while a computer engineering student at Auburn University, Spencer turned his attention to PBXs (private branch exchanges). He got the open source Asterisk ball rolling using his Linux-based PC and knowledge of the C programming language to write his own digital PBX. Shortly thereafter, he founded Digium.
The rest, as they say, is history. The Asterisk-based open source PBX project drew contributions from open source developers worldwide, who have formed the open source Asterisk community.
Today, a relatively small but expanding group of young independent digital telecommunications software providers are joining with some larger, established firms to support Asterisk-based digital PBXs, particularly for the small and medium-sized business sector.
Like many early open source community pioneers, "Spencer strongly believes that every technology he creates should be given back to the community. This is why Asterisk is fully open source," Bill Miller, Digium's vice president of product management and marketing, told LinuxInsider.
"This model has allowed Asterisk to remain available free of charge, while it has become as robust as the leading and most expensive PBXs," Miller said. "The Asterisk community includes ambassadors and contributors from every corner of the globe. Major corporations even have teams of developers building Asterisk-based products and solutions." (http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/9KMRNBq3L8g6gz/Open-Source-Changing-Models-Changing-Mindsets-Part-1.xhtml)
May be updated at Open Source VoIP
Discussion
A critique of Open Source
From the point of view of the Free Software movements' principles.
By Rob Myers, cited at http://www.anat.org.au/stillopen/blog/2007/08/19/open-source-ideologies/
"Yochai Benkler describes Open Source as a methodology of commons based peer production. This means work made collaboratively and shared publicly by a community of equals. For Eric Raymond the virtue of Open Source is its efficiency. Open Source can create better products faster than the old closed source model. Many of the most successful software programs in use today, particularly on the internet, are Open Source.
Applying the ideas of Open Source to other projects, be they political, philosophical or artistic, is more difficult than it might seem. The idea of Open Source as a more efficient means of production has nothing to say about what Open Source politics or art should be like.
To take the example of the Open Congress event at Tate Modern, artists struggled to find an Open Source ideology to apply to their art, activists struggled to find an Open Source ideology to apply to their organisations, and theorists grinned and invoked Deleuze and Spinoza to cover the gaps.
This confusion is not a problem with the idea of Open Source. Rather it is the intended result of it. The name Open Source was deliberately chosen for its meaninglessness and ideological vacuity. This was intended to make the results of a very strong ideology more palatable to large corporations by disguising its origins. That ideology is Free Software.
Free Software is a set of principles designed to protect the freedom of individuals to use computer software. It emerged in the 1980s against a backdrop of increasing restrictions on the use and production of software. Free Software can therefore be understood historically and ethically as the defence of freedom against a genuine threat.
Once software users freedoms are protected the methodology that we know as Open Source becomes possible and its advantages become apparent. But without the guiding principles of Free Software the neccessity and direction of Open Source cannot be accounted for. Open Source has no history or trajectory, it cannot account for itself or suggest which tasks are neccessary or important. Free Software requires freedom, which is a practical goal to pursue.
Free Software is a historical development, a set of principles, and a set of possibilities. Free Software projects have converged on the methodology that Raymond describes as Open Source because of this. To describe this methodology as commons based peer production causes further confusion. There are no peers in a Free Software project. If contributions are deemed to be of acceptable quality, they are added to the project by its appointed gatekeepers. If not, they are rejected and advice given. This methodology is a structured and exclusive one, but it is meritocratic. Any contribution of sufficient quality can be accepted, and if someone makes enough such contributions they themselves may gain the trust required to become a gatekeeper.
This confusion leads to projects such as Wikipedia trying to create an open space for anyone to use as they wish. This leads to social darwinism, not freedom, as the contents of that space is determined by a battle of wills. Wikipedia has had to evolve to reproduce many of the structures of a real Free Software project to tackle these problems. But people still regard its earlier phase as a model for emulation, whereas it should serve as more of a warning.
It is therefore the condition of Freedom rather than the condition of Open Source that art should aspire to. Prior to the extension of copyright to cover art as well as literature, art was implicitly free. The physical artefacts of art were expensive to own and difficult or impossible to transport. But the content of art was free to use. Michaelangelo could rip off christian and pagan imagery to paint a ceiling, generations of artists could riff on the theme of the cruxifiction, and anyone could carve a statue of Venus. The representational freedom of artists, part of which is the freedom to depict and build or comment on existing culture, to continue the conversation of culture, is the freedom of art.
With photography and now electronic media, copyright and trademarks have increasingly restricted the artists freedom to continue the conversation of culture. Where once artists could paint gods and kings, they must now be careful not to paint chocolate and the colour purple or they will infringe Cadburys trademark. And new computer technology makes it possible to physically lock artists out of mass media imagery, closing off part of the world from arts freedom of representation.
In this context artists are not volunteers when they take on issues of cultural freedom. They are exemplars. Free art, a free culture, is of vital importance for a free society. Part of this freedom may be ideas of commons based peer production. But it is important not to confuse the results of an ideology with its principles. It is these principles that artists should pursue." (http://www.anat.org.au/stillopen/blog/2007/08/19/open-source-ideologies/)