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A Concise Introduction to Free and Open Source Software
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=2009121910560446
A Concise Introduction to Free and Open Source Software
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| Abstract: In the early days of information
| technology (IT), computers were delivered
| with operating systems and basic application
| software already installed, without
| additional cost, and in editable (source
| code) form. But as software emerged as a
| stand-alone product, the independent
| software vendors (ISVs) that were launched
| to take advantage of this commercial
| opportunity no longer delivered source code,
| in order to prevent competitors from gaining
| access to their trade secrets. The practice
| also had the (intended) result that computer
| users became dependent on their ISVs for
| support and upgrades. Due to the
| increasingly substantial investments
| computer users made in application software,
| they also became "locked in" to their
| hardware and software vendors' products,
| because of the high cost of abandoning, or
| reconfiguring, their existing application
| software to run on the proprietary operating
| system of a new vendor. In response, a
| movement in support of "free software"
| (i.e., programs accompanied both by source
| code as well as the legal right to modify,
| share and distribute that code) emerged in
| the mid 1980s. The early proponents of free
| software regarded the right to share source
| code as an essential freedom, but a later
| faction focused only on the practical
| advantages of freely sharable code, which
| they called "open source." Concurrently, the
| Internet enabled a highly distributed model
| of software development to become pervasive,
| based upon voluntary code contributions and
| globally collaborative efforts. The combined
| force of these developments resulted in the
| rapid proliferation of "free and open source
| software" (FOSS) development projects that
| have created many "best of breed" operating
| system and application software products,
| such that the economic importance of FOSS
| has now become very substantial. In this
| article, I trace the origins and theories of
| the free software and open source movements,
| the complicated legal implications of FOSS
| development and use, and the supporting
| infrastructural ecosystem that has grown up
| to support this increasingly vital component
| of our modern, IT based society.
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http://www.consortiuminfo.org/bulletins/aug09.php#feature
Recent:
Jazz, Jazz Standards, and Open Source
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| Is one type of standard better than another?
| Clearly not; they simply serve different
| goals. The art, as in so many things, is to
| find the right balance (even in the second
| type of standard) between ensuring
| usability, while enabling beneficial
| creativity.
|
| This need for balance is recognized in one
| of the core tenets of modern standard
| setting, applauded by competitors, antitrust
| authorities and economists alike. That tenet
| goes something like this: vendors should be
| encouraged to collaborate on the creation of
| the standards necessary to enable new goods
| and services to be offered, and then compete
| in the creation of additional value-added
| features that will distinguish their
| particular wares in the marketplace from
| each other. And, in fact, this is exactly
| what does happen all of the time.
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http://www.consortiuminfo.org/bulletins/#considerthis
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