Thursday, November 26, 2009

History Of Open Source

Open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials—typically, their source code. 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.Subsequently, open source software became the most prominent face of open source practices.

The open source model can allow for the concurrent use of different agendas and approaches in production, in contrast with more centralized models of development such as those typically used in commercial software companies.The principles and practices are commonly applied to the peer production development of the source that is made available for public collaboration. The result of this peer-based collaboration is usually released as open-source, open source methods are increasingly being applied in other fields of endeavor, such as biotechnology.
The concept of open source and free sharing of technological information has existed long before computers existed. There is open source pertaining to businesses and there is open source pertaining to computers, software, and technology. In the early years of automobile development, a group of capital monopolists owned the rights to a 2 cycle gasoline engine patent originally filed by George B. Selden. By controlling this patent, they were able to monopolize the industry and force car manufacturers to adhere to their demands, or risk a lawsuit. In 1911, independent automaker Henry Ford won a challenge to the Selden patent. The result was that the Selden patent became virtually worthless and a new association (which would eventually become the Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Association) was formed.The new association instituted a cross-licensing agreement among all US auto manufacturers: although each company would develop technology and file patents, these patents were shared openly and without the exchange of money between all the manufacturers. Up to the point where the US entered World War II, 92 Ford patents were being used freely by other manufacturers and were in turn making use of 515 patents from other companies, all without lawsuits or the exchange of any money.

Very similar to open standards, researchers with access to the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) used a process called Request for Comments to develop telecommunication network protocols. Characterized by contemporary open source work, this 1960s' collaborative process led to the birth of the Internet in 1969. There are earlier instances of open source and free software such as IBM's source releases of its operating systems and other programs in the 1950s, 60s, and the SHARE user group that formed to facilitate the exchange of software. Open source on the internet began when the internet was just a message board and progressed to more advanced presentation and sharing forms like a website. There are now many websites, organizations, and businesses i.e. Lego Corporation, who promote open source sharing of everything from computer code to mechanics of improving a product, technique, or medical advancement.

The decision by some people in the free software movement to use the label “open source” came out of 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. 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.

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.

0 comments:

Post a Comment

search

Custom Search
 
udgos.blogspot.com Copyright © 2009 Blogger Template Designed by Bie Blogger Template