Someone explain open source to me please.?

Question

What is the motivation for people to write open source software? Who pays the developers that wrote linux? I understand why people write small open source programs, but who would spend all that time to get nothing in return???

I know what open source is, I'm in college to be a programmer......I guess what I wanna know is, do the developers of linux get paid??? If so who pays them???? How was Linux financed???

Answer 1

hi,

Open source is a set of principles and practices that promote access to the design and production of goods and knowledge. The term is most commonly applied to the source code of software that is available to the general public with relaxed or non-existent intellectual property restrictions. This allows users to create software content through incremental individual effort or through collaboration.
The open source model of operation can be extended to open source culture in decision making, which allows concurrent input of different agendas, approaches and priorities, in contrast with more centralized models of development such as those typically used in commercial companies.[1] Open source culture is one where collective decisions or fixations are shared during development and made generally available in the public domain, as done in Wikipedia. This collective approach moderates ethical concerns over a "conflict of roles" or conflict of interest. Participants in such a culture are able to modify the collective outcomes and share them with the community. Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations.
Before the term open source became popular, developers and producers used various phrases to describe the concept; the term gained popularity with the rise of the Internet which enabled diverse production models, communication paths and interactive communities.[2] Later, open source software became the most prominent face of open source practices.

In the 1950s, IBM distributed operating systems in source format, and the SHARE user group was formed to facilitate the exchange of source code. In 1960's, researchers with access to the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) used a process called Request for Comments, which is similar to open standards, to develop telecommunication network protocols. Characterized by contemporary open source work, this collaborative process led to the birth of the Internet in 1969.
The "open source" label came out of a strategy session[3] held at Palo Alto, California, in reaction to Netscape's January 1998 announcement of a source code release for Navigator. The group of individuals at the session included Christine Peterson who suggested "open source", Todd Anderson, Larry Augustin, Jon Hall, Sam Ockman, and Eric S. Raymond. They used the opportunity before the release of Navigator's source code to free themselves of the ideological and confrontational connotations of the term free software. Netscape licensed and released its code as open source under the Netscape Public License and subsequently under the Mozilla Public License.[4]
The term was given a big boost at an event organized in April 1998 by technology publisher Tim O'Reilly. Originally titled the "Freeware Summit" and later known as the "Open Source Summit",[5] the event brought together the leaders of many of the most important free and open source projects, including Linus Torvalds, Larry Wall, Brian Behlendorf, Eric Allman, Guido van Rossum, Michael Tiemann, Paul Vixie, Jamie Zawinski of Netscape, and Eric Raymond. At that meeting, the confusion caused by the name "free software" was brought up. Tiemann argued for "sourceware" as a new term, while Raymond argued for "open source." The assembled developers took a vote, and the winner was announced at a press conference that evening. This milestone may be commonly seen as the birth of the Open Source Initiative.

The Open Source Initiative (OSI) formed in February 1998 by Raymond and Perens. With about 20 years of evidence from case histories of closed and open development already provided by the Internet, the OSI continued to present the 'open source' case to commercial businesses. They sought to bring a higher profile to the practical benefits of freely available source code, and wanted to bring major software businesses and other high-tech industries into open source. Perens adapted Debian's Free Software Guidelines to make the Open Source Definition.[6]

Richard Matthew Stallman (born March 16, 1953), often abbreviated rms (lower case),[1] is a software freedom activist, hacker, and software developer. In September 1983, he launched the GNU Project to create a free Unix-like operating system, and has been the project's lead architect and organizer. With the launch of the GNU project he started the free software movement, and in October 1985 set up the Free Software Foundation. He co-founded the League for Programming Freedom. Stallman pioneered the concept of copyleft and is the main author of several copyleft licenses including the GNU General Public License, the most widely used free software license.[4] Since the mid-1990s, Stallman has spent most of his time advocating for free software, as well as campaigning against both software patents and what he sees as excessive extension of copyright laws. Stallman has also developed a number of pieces of widely used software, including the original Emacs, the GNU Compiler Collection, and the GNU Debugger.

Answer 2

The idea is for individuals and companies to work together and share what they produce. The reason people work together on these things is that good projects are often way too huge for a few individuals to undertake. So by putting together their efforts, they can come out with something truly great. Distributing with an open source license means that anyone is free to tinker and try to make improvements which may be added to the original or even (with most licenses) distributed as an entirely different project. I think a lot of open source software is programmed by academics and enthusiasts, and more is programmed by companies who understand that enthusiasts can help with their development if the code is available to them.

Open source does not necessarily mean free (in the monetary sense) either. Some people charge for open source software, and people buy it because they want to be able to make changes on their own to customize the program for their application. Good night!

Oh yeah, the first answer is wrong on one point . . . Linux is open source, but UNIX typically is not.

Answer 3

Most computer hackers (not crackers, the bad guys) are programmers who believe that all electronic information should be shared for the betterment of the whole electronic information community, and not for profit.

In their own words:

"Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in."

It is basically the Declaration of Independence for computer geeks.

However, I think many of them have day jobs and do their open source work on the side. Also, some write spyware for cash.

Here is the Open Source Initiative Website:

http://www.opensource.org/

Here is the Linux website:

http://www.linux.org/

Answer 4

Open source has nothing to do with the retail price of a product. Open source just implies that when you get a software product, you get the source code with it.

Quoting gnu.org:

Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of free as in free speech, not as in free beer.

As for "get nothing in return???"

How about personal satisfaction? I know people who pay to get pleasure which does not even come anywhere near the feeling of success :)

There are also a lot of companies, amongst them IBM, HP, SUN and many others, who sponsor Linux and open source projects. This is because these companies realised the potential of Open Source and Linux. IBM even has linux for their zSeries main frames. Such companies employ many of the lead developers of Linux

Please refer to the article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source. Its a good starting point. Then, you can go read the information presented by OSI at http://www.opensource.org/. Its a not for profit corporation (does not mean work for peanuts and bananas - they just make no profit) promoting the idea of open source technologies. The GPL is one of the most widely used open source licences. Feel free to read up on it at gnu.org. This site has some more great info, at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/, that might just answer your questions in great detail.

I hope these links will get you started on understanding how open source works and why it will prevail.

Answer 5

open source refers to programs that are writen and the code behind it is open to other programmers to manipulate. For instance, UNIX is an open source operating system that can be manupulated and it's languge is open for others whereas microsoft windows xp is not open source meaning that the source code is not open to the public and can't be manipulated. hope this helps. many people write open source code to allow the growth of the technology rather than for profeit of monetary gain.