Through the contributions of many people to the publicly available source code, bugs get fixed, improvements are made, and a “good” software program becomes a “great” one over time

The term “open source” was coined in 1998 after Netscape decided to publish the source code for its popular Navigator browser. This announcement prompted a small group of software developers who had been longtime supporters of the soon-to-be open source ideology to formally develop the Open Source Initiatives (OSI) and the Open Source Definition.

Although the OSI ideology was initially promoted in the hacker community, upon Netscape’s release of Navigator’s source code, programmers from all walks of life began to offer suggestions and fixes to improve the browser’s performance. The OSI mission was off and running, as the mainstream computing world began to embrace the idea. 

Linux became the first operating system to be called open source (although BSD was a close runner-up, distributed from Berkeley in 1989), and many programs followed soon thereafter. Large software corporations, such as Corel, began to offer versions of their programs that worked on Linux machines. Although there are now numerous classifications of OSI open source licenses, any software that bears the OSI Certification seal can be considered open source because it has passed the Open Source Definition list. These programs are available from a multitude of Web sites; the most popular is www.sourceforge.net, which houses more than 66,000 open source projects.

Why Open Source Rocks
Open source programs are very cool because:

❑ They are free. The greatest thing about open source software is that it is free and available to the general public. Software developers and programmers volunteer their time to improve existing software and create new programs. Open source software cannot, by definition, require any sort of licensing or sales fees.

❑ They are cross-platform and “technology-neutral.” By requiring open source software to be non–platform specific, the open source community has ensured that the programs are usable by virtually everyone. According to the Open Source Definition provided by the Open Source Initiative at http://opensource.org/docs/definition.php, open source programs must not be dependent on any “individual technology or style of interface” and must be “technology-neutral.” As long as the software can run on more than one operating system, then it meets the criteria.

❑ They must not restrict other software. This basically means that if an open source program is distributed along with other programs, those other programs may be open source or commercial in nature. This gives software developers maximum control and flexibility.

❑ They embrace diversity. Diversity of minds and cultures simply produces a better result. For this reason, open source programs cannot, by definition, discriminate against any person or group of persons, nor against any “field of endeavor.” (For example, a program designed for use in the medical profession cannot be limited to that field if someone in another field wants to take the program and modify it to fit his or her needs.)

For a complete list of the criteria a piece of software must meet before it can be considered “open source,” or for more information about the OSI or the open source community, visit the OSI Web site at www.opensource.org.