IS Spring The Basics of Open Source Reinhardi A. Haqi Mohamed Umar Shakeel Advanced Topics for Systems Development

IS Spring Agenda Historical background Overview of open source Cost and benefits Open source usage guidelines Challenges & success factors Marketplace analysis Questions & Answer

IS Spring Historical Background Free software movement started by Richard Stallman, a staff hacker at MIT in Free means freedom to download, use, modify and redistribute. The copyright license: GNU General Public License (GPL) – a.k.a. Copyleft (all rights reversed!) Major rule of GPL: all derivative works must be licensed under the same terms.

IS Spring Historical background Open source movement ≠ free software movement. Open source movement started in 1998 by Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens. Major difference: licensing and the meaning of “free software”. Open source allow the creation of commercial software from open source code. Example: Red Hat Linux, start from $39.00

IS Spring Overview of Open Source Basic idea behind open source: Software can evolve more quickly when people from around the world can read and contribute to the source code. Key elements: voluntary participation and voluntary selection of tasks. Participants: programmers, separated by geography, culture, and language. Participants: do not get any money in return.

IS Spring Few Types of Open Source licenses No license: Free and no restrictions. BSD-style license: Free and may create proprietary software from an open code. GNU General Public License: Free to use and all derivative works must also be free. Mozilla Public License: similar to BSD-style license and allow developers to create proprietary add-ons.

IS Spring Cost and Benefit Benefits:  Cost-savings  Access to source code  Customizable  Better functionality Cost:  Technical support and maintenance  User training

IS Spring Usage Guidelines Acquiring open source requires careful product selection. Important Issues:  Security  Reliability  Cost & benefit  Flexibility  Support

IS Spring Success factors Source code documentation Release early and often Support from the management

IS Spring Challenges Problems associated with intellectual property Poor integration with proprietary software Unavailability of technical support

IS Spring Marketplace Analysis Open source has started gaining market rapidly in the recent past Some are dominating the market while some are gaining recognition fast Many organizations world wide have started to embrace it

IS Spring Marketplace Analysis SourceForge has reported over 80,000 projects and 800,000 participants up to 2004 Projects doubled while participants tripled between 2001 and 2003

IS Spring Open Source Market Share

IS Spring Questions?