The New Religion “Open Source & Linux”

What exactly is Open Source?

In today’s world whenever the computer users speak on the software, that although they have bought a latest version of Software, they are not able to make any improvements & redistribution of that software. It implies that, these guys blindly follow the enforced religion called “Proprietary software”. But to our relief, apart from the “ Enforced Religion - Proprietary Software” there exists new religion called Open Source Software.

Open Source Software is computer software whose source code is available under a license (or arrangement such as the public domain) that permits users to use, change, and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified form. It is often developed in a public, collaborative manner.

Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code. Software is categorized as open source software if it meets the following criteria.

1. Free Redistribution
The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.

2. Source Code
Allowed to make modification, upgrading that results improvements in source code.

3. Derived works
The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.

4. Integrity of The Author's Source Code
The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software.

5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.

6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.

7. Distribution of License
The rights attached to program must be applied to all the redistributed program without any additional license or policies.

8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product
The rights attached to the program must not depend on the program's being part of a particular software distribution. If the program is extracted from that distribution and used or distributed within the terms of the program's license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the original software distribution.

9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software
The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source software.

10. License Must Be Technology-Neutral
No provision of the license may be predicated on any individual technology or style of interface.

Now, your question would be what are advantages on use of Open Source?
- It is free of cost.
- Reliability.
- Easily available.
- Quality Software (Modification and Up gradation)
- Large Support.
- Obtain the software once, install many times at any location.

List of Major Open Source Software in all categories of IT usage are as follow.

· Operating Systems Unix, Linux, FreeBSD, GNU Hurt, OpenDarwin, OpenSolaris, VSTa, FreeDOS, FreeVMS
· Programming Languages Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Tk/Tcl, MONO, newLISP
· Web Servers Apache, IBM WebSphere
· Web Browsers Firefox Mozilla, Netscape Navigator,
· Database Storage MySQL, PostreSQL, IBM DB2

There are many other open source software that are not listed in above categories. But they are equally respected.

Thus, open source is a threat to proprietary software especially for the Giant Microsoft whose various application are replaced by open source software in the market, such IIS, IE, OS, MS Office, .NET Project etc. by Apache, Firefox Mozilla, OpenOffice, Mono Project.etc respectively.

Hope you enjoy this article, the remaining part will be published in next issue.