Open Source: The Importance in the New Millenium

What is Open Source?

Generally, open source signifies any program for which the source code is available for modification or change by the developers according to necessity. It is chiefly available for public use and therefore people are free to use it.

As a Certification Mark:

Open Source is regarded as a certification mark owned by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). Developers of software that is meant to be freely shared and possibly improvised and redistributed by others can use the Open Source trademark if their distribution terms adapt to the OSI's Open Source Definition. To say it in short, the Definition model of distribution terms needs the following:

    * There should be no restriction imposed on the software. That is to say, the software should be allowed to be distributed once and then redistributed without any restriction.

    * There must be a free availability of the source code. This is to ensure that the receiving party gets the full right to modify it according to his needs or requirements.

    * The license can necessitate improved versions of the software to carry a special name or version from the original software.

Open source is regarded as a process to the design, development, and distribution of software, providing practical accessibility to a software's source code. Some believe open source as one of different possible design approaches, while others think it a critical strategic element of their operations. Before open source became extensively adopted, developers and producers used a variety of phrases to explain the concept; the term open source gained a huge momentum and a wide round of applause with the rise of the Internet, which provided access to diverse production models, communication paths, and interactive communities.

Software development costs in organizations have been boasted as being roughly 15% of total costs. This points out to the value of one over another development methodology is more of a marketing decision as much as it is about the planning of software. The open source model of function and decision making ensures concurrent input of different agendas, approaches and priorities, and it is very different from the more closed, centralized models of development.

 The principles and practices are usually applied to the peer manufacture development of source code for software that is made accessible for public collaboration. The result of this peer-based collaboration is regularly released as open-source software, though, open source methods are gradually being applied in other fields of endeavor, such as biotechnology.

Widely used open source products

Open source software (OSS) projects are constructed and maintained by a network of volunteer programmers. Some of the chief examples of open source products are the Apache HTTP Server, the e-commerce platform osCommerce and the Internet browser Mozilla Firefox. One of the most flourishing open source products is the GNU/Linux operating system, an open source application or Unix-like operating system.