Open Source

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Research Paper on Open Source
Software Systems

source software is itself open source), to pure
open source that has no restrictions (or warranty)
on the use or application of the software.

Introduction:
There are as many definitions of “open source”
and “free software” as there are software lawyers
drafting contracts that define them. But the
essence of “open source” (a.k.a. “free software”)
is that:
•when you get the software, you get the source
code, not just the binaries
•you can modify the source code to make
improvements and fixes to the software.
By and large, the terms “free software” and “open
source software” are interchangeable, as the word
“free” in “free software” means “free (dom) to
modify the program’s source code”, not “at any
cost”. This potential ambiguity in the meaning of
the phrase “free software” has led to the term
“open source software” becoming in more
common use.
In general “open source” software is also available
at low or no cost – sometimes depending on the
class of user (academic or commercial). The
variations in open source licenses all revolve
around what users of the source code that comes
with open source can do with it. Obviously, if open
source is “free and open”, then the developers of
open source do not want others to freeload off
their open source code to develop and market
software that is not “free and open”. A useful
analogy is that if you were giving away fruit or
vegetables from your garden to your neighbors,
you would not want them to sell those to others...
but there are lots of grey areas – what if your
neighbor made jam with your fruit, can they sell
that? Open source licenses range from the Free
Software Foundations “copyleft” licenses (that
require that any software that is built on open

History & Evolution:
Long before the term “Open Source” was used,
software was developed by loose associations of
programmers and freely exchanged. Starting in
the early 1950's, organizations such as SHARE and
DECUS developed much of the software that
computer hardware companies bundled with their
hardware offerings. At that time computer
companies were in the hardware business;
anything that reduced software cost and made
more programs available made the hardware
companies more competitive.
This model changed in the 1960's. In 1965 ADR
developed the first licensed software product
independent of a hardware company. ADR was
competing against a free IBM package originally
developed by IBM customers. ADR patented their
software in 1968. To stop sharing of their
program, they provided it under an equipment
lease in which payment was spread over the
lifetime of the product. ADR thus retained
ownership and could control resale and reuse.
In 1969 the US Department of Justice charged IBM
with destroying businesses by bundling free
software with IBM hardware. As a result of this
suit, IBM unbundled its software; that is, software
became independent products separate from
hardware.
In 1968 Informatics introduced the first
commercial killer-app and rapidly established the
concept of the software product, the Software
Company, and very high rates of return.
Informatics developed the perpetual license which
is now standard throughout the computer

industry, wherein ownership is never transferred
to the customer.

Business Models:
1) Dual licensing: Dual licensing offers the
software under an open-source license
but also under separate proprietary
license terms. The proprietary version can
be sold to finance the continued
development of the free open-source
version. Customers can be attracted to a
no-cost and open-source edition, and then
be part of an up-sell to a commercial
enterprise edition. Further, customers will
learn of open-source software in a
company's portfolio and offerings but
generate business in other proprietary
products
and
solutions,
including
commercial technical support contracts
and services. A popular example is the
MySQL database.
2) Selling Professional Services: The financial
return of costs on open-source software
can also come from selling services, such
as training, technical support, or
consulting rather than the software itself.
Another possibility is offering open-source
software in source code form only, while
providing executable binaries to paying
customers only, offering the commercial
service of compiling and packaging of the
software. Also, providing goods like
physical installation media (e.g. DVDs) can
be a commercial service. Open-source
companies using this business model
successfully are for instance RedHat and
IBM.
3) Selling Software as a service: Selling
subscriptions for online accounts and
server access to customers is a way of

making profit based on open-source
software. Also, combining desktop
software with a service, called software
plus services. Providing cloud computing
services or software as a service (SAAS)
without the release of the open-source
software itself, neither in binary nor in
source form, conforms with most opensource licenses (with exception of the
AGPL).
4) Delayed Open Sourcing: Some companies
provide the latest version available only to
paying customers. A vendor forks a noncopyleft software project then adds
closed-source additions to it and sells the
resulting software. After a fixed time
period the patches are released back
upstream under the same license as the
rest of the code base. This business model
is called version lagging or time delaying.

Other business models could be:









Selling of branded merchandise
Partnership
with
funding
organizations
Voluntary donations
Bounties
Advertising supported software
Selling of optional proprietary
extensions
Re-licensing under a proprietary
license
Obfuscation of Source Code

Future of Open Source System:
So what do we see as the future of open
source? When it comes to software
development, it will be increasingly
difficult to integrate, develop, and extend
closed source software--and extremely
costly compared to open source
alternatives. Companies have come to
understand the importance of open
source and the key role it plays in
developing innovative software today.
Twitter's messaging app is a good example
of how open source can be powerfully
used, and of how well-known companies
are influencing the community. Because
Twitter open sourced its messaging
platform, it gave a lot of other companies
the ability to benefit from the direct
messaging capabilities it developed. Even
top financial companies, such as Goldman
Sachs, realize the importance of open
source.
Open source has long since proved its
legitimacy, and the use of open source has
changed the way that companies
compete. It's very difficult for companies
to develop innovative software without it,
and companies now understand the rapid,
progressive development it enables. As
industries and technologies continue to
evolve at a faster pace, closed source
companies will be dead in the water if
they aren't leveraging the open source
community and the projects they're
working on.

Conclusions
Free and open source software
development is emerging as an alternative
approach for how to develop large
software systems. FOSSD employs sociotechnical work practices, development
processes, and community networking
often different from those found in
industrial software projects, and those
portrayed in software engineering
textbooks. As a result, FOSSD offer new
types and new kinds of practices,
processes, and organizational forms to
discover, observe, analyze, model, and
simulate. Similarly, understanding how
FOSSD practices, processes, and projects
are similar to or different from traditional
SE counterparts is an area ripe for further
research and comparative study. Many
new research opportunities exist in the
empirical examination, modeling, and
simulation of FOSSD activities, efforts, and
communities.
FOSSD project source code, artifacts, and
online repositories represent and offer
new publicly available data sources of a
size, diversity, and complexity not
previously available for SE research, on a
global basis. For example, software
process modeling and simulation research
and application has traditionally relied on
an empirical basis in real-world processes
for analysis and validation. However, such
data has often been scarce, costly to
acquire, and is often not available for
sharing or independent re-analysis for
reasons including confidentiality or nondisclosure agreements.
Submitted by:
Utsav Gahtori
80011314014

Reference:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fred-simon/the-future-of-open-source_b_5479678.html
https://www.acs.org.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/15784/JRPIT35.4.227.pdf
https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/articles/bsdl-gpl/history.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_models_for_open-source_software

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