Professional Documents
Culture Documents
INDEX
Comparative Features. 21
Bibliography.
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Open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to
the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others
consider it a pragmatic methodology. Before the term open source became widely
adopted, developers and producers used a variety of phrases to describe the concept; open
source gained hold with the rise of the Internet, and the attendant need for massive
retooling of the computing source code. Opening the source code enabled a self-
enhancing diversity of production models, communication paths, and interactive
communities. Subsequently, a new, three-word phrase "open source software" was born
to describe the environment that the new copyright, licensing, domain, and consumer
issues created.
Open-source Software is computer software that is available in source code form for
which the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are
provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, and improve the
software. Open source licenses meet the requirements of the Open Source Definition.
Some open source software is available within the public domain. Open source software
is very often developed in a public, collaborative manner. Open-source software is the
most prominent example of open-source development and often compared to (technically
defined) user-generated content or (legally defined) open content movements. The term
open-source software originated as part of a marketing campaign for free software. A
report by Standish Group states that adoption of open-source software models has
resulted in savings of about $60 billion per year to consumers.
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Critics have said that the term “open source” fosters an ambiguity of a different kind
such that it confuses the mere availability of the source with the freedom to use,
modify, and redistribute it. Developers have used the alternative terms Free/open
source Software (FOSS), or Free/Libre/open source Software (FLOSS),
consequently, to describe open source software which is also free software.
The term “open source” was originally intended to be trademarkable; however, the
term was deemed too descriptive, so no trademark exists. The OSI would prefer that
people treat Open Source as if it were a trademark, and use it only to describe
software licensed under an OSI approved license. OSI Certified is a trademark
licensed only to people who are distributing software licensed under a license listed
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Open source software and free software are different terms for software which
comes with certain rights, or freedoms, for the user. They describe two approaches
and philosophiestowards free software. Open source and free software (or software
libre) both describe software which is free from onerous licensing restrictions. It
may be used, copied, studied, modified and redistributed without restriction. Free
software is not the same as freeware, software available at zero price.
The definition of open source software was written to be almost identical to the free
software definition. There are very few cases of software that is free software but is
not open source software, and vice versa. The difference in the terms is where they
place the emphasis. “Free software” is defined in terms of giving the user freedom.
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This reflects the goal of the free software movement. “Open source” highlights that
the source code is viewable to all and proponents of the term usually emphasize the
quality of the software and how this is caused by the development models which are
possible and popular among free and open source software projects.
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1. Free Redistribution
The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as
a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from
several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for
such sale.
2. Source Code
The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code
as well as compiled form. Where some form of a product is not distributed with
source code, there must be a well-publicized means of obtaining the source code
for no more than a reasonable reproduction cost preferably, downloading via the
Internet without charge. The source code must be the preferred form in which a
programmer would modify the program. Deliberately obfuscated source code is
not allowed. Intermediate forms such as the output of a preprocessor or translator
are not allowed.
3. Derived Works
The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to
be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.
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7. Distribution of License
The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is
redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by those
parties.
Courtesy- http://opensource.org/docs/osd.
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The very origins of Linux lie in the open-source model created by Richard Stallman, who
in the early 1980's when working at MIT became extremely unhappy with the proprietary
approach to software development. Stallman found that when he was trying to develop
new software for Xerox printers, Xerox refused to provide the vital source code making
modification extremely difficult. Stallman saw the future of software manufacturing as
taking this very industrialist approach whereby large software manufacturers kept their
vital source code (product knowledge) from their customers/competitors in order to gain
competitive advantage and standardisation. Stallman believed that the source code should
be freely available and soon left his job at MIT and developed his own project called
GNU with a free operating code using a specific variation of Unix. Open-source was born
whereby the source-code would be provided with the operating platform and 'copy-left'
was introduced where 'copyrighting a program and then adding specific distribution terms
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that give everyone the right to use, modify and distribute the code' (Lighthouse case
Study 1999). Stallman saw the development of software as a public utility not one which
is dominated by public companies - who didn't always produce the most functional
software.
Linus Torvalds first discovered a Unix like program called Minix while studying at
University in Helsinki, Finland. Linus posted his new Unix-like kernel on the Internet
and asked for suggestions on what people 'disliked/liked about Minix...and for any
practical solutions' (Moody 2001),’ whilst maintaining that the operating system was free.
At this stage the Linux community was created and as a result of which actors in the
community could communicate to Linus via the technological infrastructure of the
Internet. Ironically the success of Linux as an open source project was heavily dependent
on another open source project for its success the Internet. 'The World Wide Web has
made it possible to implement virtually any conceivable scheme for organising Linux
information' (Browne 1997). The following diagram shows why:
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project and ultimately adding more lines of code to the Linux kernel.
As the community grew so did the reliability, functionality, complexity
and commercial suitability of the Linux operating code. However the
open source movement and the social co-ordination of the Linux
project meant that individuals were more interested in personnel
reputation and open source ideologies of the hacker community rather
than personal financial gains. The open source movement is highly
visible and individual hackers are mainly motivated by 'developing a
name for themselves or enhancing a reputation.This led to one of the
main advantages Linux had over contemporary software
manufacturers in that millions of similar like-minded individuals can
add to the community with different perspectives increasing the
probability that any bugs will be fixed through incremental
improvements. The following diagram depicts the virtuous value chain
within Linux from the release of the operating code to evolutionary,
self-organising cycle that makes the Linux open source community so
formidable.
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Today Linux has clearly earned its stripes as an enterprise solution running infrastructure-
oriented workloads, and over the past few years, it has been making a steady transition
into a solution used as the foundation for business-oriented workloads. In parallel with
this workload transition, the industry has seen a healthy evolution of an ecosystem
consisting of related software, hardware, and support services surrounding Linux. This
ecosystem grew to over $21 billion in 2007 and is expected to more than double in
revenue by 2011.
Figure 1 shows the ecosystem enabled by the Linux SOE. The growth shown in Figure 1
is driven by three major components: software, hardware, and services. IDC’s projection
calls for software revenue to grow faster than either hardware or services revenue. This
forecast takes into consideration the shift from infrastructure-oriented workloads to more
mainstream business-oriented workloads.
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IDC believes that systems integration activities represent the largest opportunity for
Linux and open source services, including migration, integration, and deployment. IT
education and training services remain one of the smallest open source opportunities but
are often considered a door opener to more value-added services such as consulting or
systems integration. IDC anticipates that the demand for services related to open source
products will grow above the market average for all IT services because of the relative
early position on the technology adoption curve that open source solutions hold today. Of
particular note, total software revenue on the Linux platform, at $10 billion today,
currently accounts for 4% of an overall total of $242 billion. That share is expected to
grow to more than 9% by 2011, or $31 billion in Linux-related software revenue in a total
market that will grow to $330 billion.
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The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache is web server software
notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. In 2009 it
became the first web server software to surpass the 100 million web site
milestone. Apache was the first viable alternative to the Netscape Communications
Corporation web server (currently known as Oracle iPlanet Web Server), and has since
evolved to rival other Unix-based web servers in terms of functionality and performance.
The majority of web servers using Apache run a Unix-like operating system.
Since April 1996 Apache has been the most popular HTTP server software in use. As of
February 2010 Apache served over 54.46% of allwebsites and over 66% of the million
busiest.
Apache is primarily used to serve both static content and dynamic Web pages on
the World Wide Web. Many web applications are designed expecting the
environment and features that Apache provides.
Apache is used for many other tasks where content needs to be made available
in a secure and reliable way. One example is sharing files from a personal
computer over the Internet. A user who has Apache installed on their desktop can
put arbitrary files in Apache's document root which can then be shared.
Comparative features
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Looking forward, I believe that users have an important role to play in creating
and sustaining our grid and cluster technology base. If users are serious about
avoiding vendor lock-in and keeping costs low, then they need to be more
aggressive in supporting grid and cluster standards (and thus encouraging
competition), and/or in adopting and supporting open source solutions (to ensure
a vibrant open source software base).
They should also demand more from open source suppliers in terms of end-to-
end solutions. There are success stories out there: in addition, to UniCluster, I
can mention the work of caBIG, the MEDICUS system for sharing medical
images, MPIG for distributed application execution, Taverna and Kepler for
workflow, and the Virtual Data Toolkit and the LHC Computing Grid stacks for
processing high energy physics data (among many others). But we need more
such, so that we can expand the set of user needs addressed by turnkey
solutions and thus reduce barriers to entry.
Bibliography.
www.opensource.org
en.wikipedia.org
sourceforge.net
www.wikinvest.com
linux-india.org/
www.kernel.org/
www.lpi.org
httpd.apache.org.