OPEN SOURCE ???

WHAT IS OPEN SOURCE

Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is available in source code form, the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.

HOW AND WHERE OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE HAS BEEN CREATED

The free software movement was launched in 1983.  In 1998, a group of individuals advocated that the term free software should be replaced by open source software (OSS) as an expression which is less ambiguous and more comfortable for the corporate world. 

Software developers may want to publish their software with an open source license, so that anybody may also develop the same software or understand its internal functioning. 

Open source software generally allows anyone to create modifications of the software, port it to new operating systems and processor architectures, share it with others or, in some cases, market it. 

Scholars Casson and Ryan have pointed out several policy-based reasons for adoption of open source, in particular, the heightened value proposition from open source (when compared to most proprietary formats) in the following categories: Security,Affordability,Transparency,Perpetuity,Interoperability,Localisation.

Particularly in the context of local governments (who make software decisions), Casson and Ryan argue that "governments have an inherent responsibility and fiduciary duty to taxpayers" which includes the careful analysis of these factors when deciding to purchase proprietary software or implement an open-source option.

The Open Source Definition, notably, presents an open source philosophy, and further defines the terms of usage, modification and redistribution of open source software.

Software licenses grant rights to users which would otherwise be reserved by copyright law to the copyright holder. 

Several open source software licenses have qualified within the boundaries of the Open Source Definition. The most prominent and popular example is the GNU General Public License (GPL), which “allows free distribution under the condition that further developments and applications are put under the same licence” – thus also free.

While open source distribution presents a way to make the source code of a product publicly accessible, the open source licenses allow the authors to fine tune such access.

WHO ARE THE FOUNDERS OF OSS

The label “open source” was adopted by some people in the free software movement at a strategy session 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, Michael Tiemann and Eric S. Raymond. Over the next week, Raymond and others worked on spreading the word. Linus Torvalds gave an all-important sanction the following day. Phil Hughes offered a pulpit in Linux Journal. Richard Stallman, pioneer of the free software movement, flirted with adopting the term, but changed his mind.  

 Those people who adopted the term 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 released its source code under the Netscape Public License and later under the Mozilla Public License.

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”,  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. Five days later, Raymond made the first public call to the free software community to adopt the new term.  The Open Source Initiative was formed shortly thereafter.

Starting in the early 2000s, a number of companies began to publish a portion of their source code to claim they were open source, while keeping key parts closed. This led to the development of the now widely used terms free open-source software and commercial open-source software to distinguish between truly open and hybrid forms of open source.

 Besides that, the analyzation of problem solving technique found by eric Raymond while, Matthias ettrich was who build the KDE for desktop environment.