The Open Source Philosophy

By Gautam Krishnan, IIIrd Year, C.S.E.

"For men may come and men may go, But I go on for ever."

-Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809 – 1892)

A quote to begin with ..

THE AGENDA :• Definitions• Timeline• The Open Source Software Development• Licenses :• GNU-GPL• Creative Commons• Copyleft

• So, why do we use Open Source ?• Open Source : Beyond Softwares• How can I get involved?

DEFINITIONS

Definitions

• Open Source : Promoting access to the end product's source materials

• Free software : Matter of liberty, not price.• GNU : A recursive acronym that stands for

"GNU's Not Unix"

Definitions

The philosophy of Open Source

The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).

The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish (freedom 1).

The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).

The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3).

TIMELINE

Timeline

• 1969 UNIX Development Begins. • 1976 Emacs written by Richard Stallman, later in

1984, released under GNU-GPL.• 1984 Richard Stallman starts the Free Software

Foundation at MIT.• 1985 GCC started by Richard Stallman.• 1986 Programmer Larry Wall releases PERL• 1991 Linux Kernel started by Linus Torvalds.

Timeline

• 1991 Python was released. • 1993 The Wine project started.• 1995 PHP, created by Rasmus Lerdorf, released

publicly.• 1996 Birth of KDE and Apache• 1997 GNOME was first released.• 1999 OpenOffice.org was founded.• 2003 Firefox was developed.• 2011 Linux Kernel 3.0 released.

THE OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

The Open Source Software Development

LICENSES

Copyleft

0. the freedom to use the work, 1. the freedom to study the work, 2. the freedom to copy and share the work with

others, 3. the freedom to modify the work, and the

freedom to distribute modified and therefore derivative works.

Creative Commons

• Forefront of the Copyleft movement• To counter the increasingly restrictive

permission culture.• Supporters : Google, Mozilla Foundation, Red

Hat• Types of CC Licenses : Attribution, Attribution

Share Alike, etc.

GNU – General Public License

• Written by Richard Stallman in 1989• Accounts for about half of the free software

which are licensed.• Conflicts in various versions of the license.• Under GPL : Linux Kernel, GCC, MySQL etc.

Wake up, it’s STORY TIME !

SO, WHY DO WE USE OPEN SOURCE?

So, Why do we use Open Source?

• The availability of the source code and the right to modify it

• The right to redistribute modifications and improvements to the code

• The right to use the software in any way.• There is no single entity on which the future

of the software depends.• No per-copy fees can be asked for modified

versions• It provides a new forum for democratic action.

SOME OPEN SOURCE ALTERNATIVES TO COMMERCIAL

SOFTWARES

Some Open Source Alternatives to Commercial Softwares

• Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw - Xara Xtreme, Skencil, Inkscape

• Adobe Photoshop – GIMP• Autodesk Maya, 3ds Max – Blender• ICQ, MSN Messenger – Pidgin• Microsoft Exchange Server – Zimbra

Some Open Source Alternatives to Commercial Softwares

• Microsoft Internet Explorer – Firefox, Rekonq• Microsoft Outlook – Evolution, Mozilla

Thunderbird• Adobe Soundbooth – Audacity• iTunes, Windows Media Player – Rhythmbox,

VLC Media Player

OPEN SOURCE : BEYOND SOFTWARES

Open Source : Beyond Softwares

• OpenCola• Vores ØI beer• Brewtopia - Open-Source Brewery• Nestle's Nespresso and Krups' Tassimo

HOW CAN I GET INVOLVED?

How can I get involved?

• Free Software Foundation www.fsf.org• Open Source Initiative www.opensource.org• http://Freshmeat.net• http:// SourceForge.net• http:// OSDir.com• http://distrowatch.com

THANK YOU!

Gautam Krishnan, IIIrd Year, C.S.E., SASTRA University

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