Foss final seminar

Free And Open Source Software

by Smit S. Patil102010029

S.Y.M.C.A.

Early computers came with source Commercial focus was on hardware Strong academic influence

Software was not portable No commercial advantage to restricting

distributionEach machine vendor needed to develop their

own'users' and 'developers' were often the same

people

Early Days - 70s

We did not call our software “free software”, because that term

did not yet exist; but that is what it was. Whenever people from

Another university or a company wanted to port and use a program, we gladly let them. If you saw someone using an unfamiliar and interesting program, you could always ask to

see the source code, so that you could read it, change it, or cannibalize parts of it to make a new program.

(Richard Stallman, The GNU Project)

Early Days – hacker culture

Richard Stallman

The GNU Project MIT AI Lab• Strong hacker culture• Switch to proprietary software in early 80s• The infamous 'Xerox printer' incident

Richard Stallman Firm stance on software freedom Founded GNU project in 1983 Founded FSF in 1985

I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a Program I must share it with other people who like it. I cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license agreement

(Richard Stallman “new UNIX implementation”)

GNU= Gnu Not Unix

Linus Torvalds

Kick-started an explosion in FOSS interest◦ Pioneered a new style of 'bazaar' development◦ Built on many existing GNU projects◦ Drew on existing Minix community

I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?". Hurd will Be out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows), and I've already got minix.This is a program for hackers by a hacker. I've enjoyed doing it, and somebody might enjoy looking at it and even modifying it for their own needs. It is still small enough to understand, use and modify, and I'm looking forward to any comments you might have.(Linus Torvalds “Free minix-like kernel sources for 386-AT” 1991)

Linux kernel

An essay by Eric S. Raymond on software engineering methods.

The essay contrasts two different free software development models:◦ The Cathedral model, in which source code is available

with each software release, but code developed between releases is restricted to an exclusive group of software developers. GNU Emacs and GCC are presented as examples.

◦ The Bazaar model, in which the code is developed over the Internet in view of the public. Raymond credits Linus Torvalds, leader of the Linux kernel project, as the inventor of this process.

The Cathedral and the Bazaar

“given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow“◦ the more widely available the source code is for

public testing, scrutiny, and experimentation, the more rapidly all forms of bugs will be discovered.

In contrast, Raymond claims that an inordinate amount of time and energy must be spent hunting for bugs in the Cathedral model, since the working version of the code is available only to a few developers.

The Cathedral and the Bazaar…

1. Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer's personal itch.

2. Good programmers know what to write. Great ones know what to rewrite (and reuse).

3. Plan to throw one away; you will, anyhow.4. If you have the right attitude, interesting

problems will find you.5. When you lose interest in a program, your last

duty to it is to hand it off to a competent successor.

Guidelines for creating good open source software

6. Treating your users as co-developers is your least-hassle route to rapid code improvement and effective debugging.

7. Release early. Release often. And listen to your customers.

8. Given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone.

9. Smart data structures and dumb code works a lot better than the other way around.


10. If you treat your beta-testers as if they're your most valuable resource, they will respond by becoming your most valuable resource.

11. The next best thing to having good ideas is recognizing good ideas from your users. Sometimes the latter is better.

12. Often, the most striking and innovative solutions come from realizing that your concept of the problem was wrong.


13. Perfection (in design) is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but rather when there is nothing more to take away.

14. To solve an interesting problem, start by finding a problem that is interesting to you.

15. development coordinator has a communications medium at least as good as the Internet, and knows how to lead without coercion, many heads are inevitably better than one.


Convince most existing open source and free software projects to adopt Bazaar-style open development models.

In 1998 it also provided the final push for Netscape Communications Corporation to release the source code for Netscape Communicator and start the Mozilla project.

Legacy

Free software is the most visible part of a new economy of commons-based peer production of information, knowledge, and culture.

This new economy is already under development. In order to commercialize FOSS, many companies, Google being the most successful.

Future Economics of FOSS

◦ The German City of Munich was amongst the first to announce its intention to switch from Microsoft Windows-based operating systems to an open source implementation of SuSE Linux in March 2003.

◦ Malaysia launched the "Malaysian Public Sector Open Source Software Program", saving millions on proprietary software licences till 2008.

◦ In 2005 the Government of Peru voted to adopt open source across all its bodies.

Adoption by governments

The Department of Information Technology, Government of India has held a keen interest in Foss and has formed NRCFOSS(National Resource Center for Free and Open Source Software)

The implementing agencies C-DAC, Anna University, IIT Bombay and IIT Madras.

Open Source In India

BOSS (Bharat Operating System Solutions):◦ Debian based Linux distribution, which supports

all major indian languages◦ Setting GNU Compiler Collection Resource center

at IIT Bombay◦ Center of Excellence for mobile internet devices.◦ Dhvani: TTS conversion software for Indian

language◦ Hindawi: Programming in native language◦ GNUKhata: Free Accounting and inventory

management software.

Achievements so far ..

Thank You