Dr' Mohamed F' Tolba

1

• Dr. Mohamed F. Tolba
• January 2009
• Open Source
• The Future of Software

2
Agenda

• Definition of Open Source
• History of Open Source
• Engineering Open Source
• Open Source Quality, Security Flexibility
• Spectrum of Open Source Products
• Open Source Licenses
• Future of Open Source

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Open Source Software

• Open Source Software (OSS) is software for which
  the programming code is available to the users so
  that they may
• Copy it
• Study it
• Use it
• Modify it , and
• Redistribute it

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Open Source Definition

• 1. Free Redistribution
• The license shall not restrict any party from
  selling or giving away the software. The license
  shall not require a royalty or other fee for such
  sale.
• 2. Source Code
• The program must include source code, and must
  allow distribution in source code as well as
  compiled form.
• 3. Derived Works
• The license must allow modifications and derived
  works, and must allow them to be redistributed.
• 4. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
• The license must not discriminate against any
  person or group of persons.

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Open Source Definition Contd

• 5. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product
• The rights attached to the program must not
  depend on the program's being part of a
  particular software distribution.
• 6. License Must Not Restrict Other Software
• The license must not place restrictions on other
  software that is distributed along with the
  licensed software.
• 7. License Must Be Technology-Neutral
• No provision of the license may be predicated on
  any individual technology or style of interface.

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Commercial Business Model
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Open Source Business Model
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What is New in Open Source?

• New Set of Software Products and Suppliers
• New Design/Development Methodology
• New Impact on Pricing
• New Set of Licenses
• New Trend of Customer Prospects
• New Career Path for Programmers
• New Business Model

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Open Source History

• Before 1983
• Software communities like-minded with todays
  Open Source communities existed. Examples
  include the IBM SHARE group.
• Examples of Software developed in this period and
  still used today SPICE, TeX and the X Window
  System
• 1983
• Richard Stallman launched the GNU Project to
  write a complete operating system free from
  constraints on use of its source code
• He coined the term "free software" and founded
  the Free Software Foundation to promote the
  concept

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Open Source History Contd

• 1989
• the first version of the GNU General Public
  License was published
• Some GNU project components like the GNU
  compiler, GNU Emacs and debugger were big
  successes
• 1990
• Apache HTTP Server became the most used web
  server software - a title that still holds as of
  2008
• 1991
• Linux was released as freely modifiable source
  code
• The combination of Linux kernel and the GNU
  project led to the first free operating system

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Open Source History Contd

• 1998
• Netscape Communications Corporation released
  Netscape Communicator Internet suite as free
  software. This code is today better known as
  Mozilla Firefox
• Sun Microsystems released the StarOffice (office
  suite) as free software under the GNU Lesser
  General Public License. The free software version
  was renamed OpenOffice.org
• 2004
• Sun Microsystems released the Java Development
  Kit OpenJDK under the GNU General Public License

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Numbers of Open Source Projects 2008

• The two biggest open source listing sites
• www.sourceforge.net which has 157,565 projects
  listed
• www.freshmeat.net which has 45,428 projects listed

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Open Source Products List

• Applications
• XWiki - Wiki Application
• Business Process
• Intalio - BPM tools
• Pentaho - BI platform
• Compatibility Tools
• CodeWeavers - Tools to run Windows apps on Linux
• Content Management
• Alfresco - Enterprise content management
  solutions
• eZSystems
• CRM
• SugarCRM - Customer Relationship Management
  solutions

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Open Source Products List (Contd)

• Database
• GreenPlum - Database servers for business
  intelligence
• Ingres - RDBMS based on Ingres
• MySQL - MySQL RDBMS
• Sleepycat Software - RDBMS based ob Berkeley DB
  (now part of Oracle)
• Developer Support
• ActiveState - Open source language tools (Perl,
  PHP, etc)
• CollabNet - On-demand collaboration tools for
  distributed development
• GlassBox - Diagnostic tools for Java programmers
• Document Management
• KnowledgeTree - Document management system

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Open Source Products List (Contd)

• Linux Distributions
• Linspire - Desktop
• Mandriva - Desktop Enterprise
• Red Hat - Desktop Enterprise
• Xandros - Desktop
• Network Software
• OpenClovis - Platform software for carrier grade
  telco systems
• Vyatta - Network Infrastructure software for
  routers switches
• Report Writer
• JasperSoft - Report Generator
• Security
• SourceFire - Network security products based on
  Snort

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use of Open Source Projects in companies using
Open Source
(Forrester Research, 2006)
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Engineering Open Source Code

• Closed source software development normally
  follows a linear, spiral or iterative model of
  development, i.e. software development goes
  through all planning, design, implementation
  phases recursively or linearly as in the
  waterfall model.
• Open source software development follows an
  evolutionary model for development where the
  software never reaches a final state and keeps on
  evolving according to customer needs.

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The Cost of Open Source

• Open source gives you maximum control at minimum
  cost
• Using open source software can cut your
  development time and budget by 50
• Adoption of Open Source 2005 resulted in 60
  billion per year savings to consumers
• (Standish
  group 2006)

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Why Open Source?
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Failure Rates

• Some popular commercial systems in the 1995 have
  an average failure rate of 23, while Linux has a
  failure rate of 9 and the GNU utilities have a
  failure rate of only 6.
• It is reasonable to ask why a globally scattered
  group of programmers, with no formal testing
  support or software engineering standards can
  produce code that is more reliable than
  commercially produced code.

(Fuzz Tests, 2001)
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Motivations

• The top motivations given for participating in
  OSS/FS development were as follows
• intellectually stimulating (44.9)
• improves skill (41.3)
• work functionality (33.8)
• code should be open (33.1)
• non-work functionality (29.7)
• obligation from use (28.5)

(Boston Consulting Group, 2003)
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OSS Developer Groups

• Open source developers could be divided into four
  groups
• Learning and Fun (29) for non-work needs and
  intellectual stimulation.
• Hobbyists (27) need the code for a non-work
  reason.
• Professionals (25) for work needs and
  professional status.
• Believers (19) believe source code should be
  open.

(Boston Consulting Group, 2003)
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Features of Open Source

• Open Source is Flexible
• The source code is available, so it can be
  altered to suit your needs.
• A program can change in ways the author never
  intended or dreamed of!
• Open Source is Cost Effective
• Support can become competitive and therefore
  cheap!
• cost sharing many developers share the
  development costs of the same product

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Features of Open Source (Contd)

• Open Source Developers are motivated
• programmers write better code
• They usually write code they need and want to
  write rather than code they are assigned
• More Security and less bugs
• Peer review allows bugs to be discovered and
  fixed early
• Viruses, spyware, etc. are almost non-existent!
• The code will survive!
• While the loss of a major corporate contributor,
  it will never mean the death of a piece of Open
  Source software.

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Who Uses Open Source? Governments

• Brazil An open source pioneer in Government
• The Presidency website
• The Government website
• The government intranet The National Department
  of Transportation Infrastructure DNIT
• SEAE The Brazilian System for Competition
  Defense is composed by the Secretariat for
  Economic Monitoring (SEAE) of the Ministry of
  Finance.
• Public Digital Portal This project aims at
  bringing the Internet services to 3000 public
  schools located in poor areas
• Germany
• The Munich migration is the largest public
  sector complete migration in Europe. Approximate
  size is 16,000 users, 14,000 desktops, 300 pieces
  of software including 170 business applications.
• Others Venezuela, Ecuador, France - French
  parliament, French National Assembly, Paris,
  Arles Italy Rome

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Who is Involved with Open Source?Organizations
and Affiliations

• The Free Software Foundation GNU
• helps to spread awareness of the ethical and
  political issues surrounding freedom in the use
  of software.
• The Linux Foundation
• promotes, protects and standardizes Linux by
  providing unified resources and services needed
  for open source to successfully compete with
  closed platforms.
• The Eclipse Foundation
• formed to advance the creation, evolution,
  promotion, and support of the Eclipse Platform
  and to cultivate both an open source community
  and an ecosystem of complementary products,
  capabilities, and services.
• OASIS
• International consortium that drives the
  development, convergence, and adoption of
  e-business standards.
• ODF Alliance
• The ODF alliance works globally to educate
  policymakers, IT administrators, and the public
  on the benefits and opportunities of the Open
  Document Format
• Open Invention Network
• Open Invention Network is an intellectual
  property company that was formed to promote Linux
  by using patents to create a collaborative
  environment

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OSS Licenses
BSD Berkeley Software Distribution (Most
Permissive)
More than 50 OSS Certified Licenses
GPL General Public License (Most Restrictive)
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BSD License (Most Permissive)

• You may use the code and do anything with it
• Ship it in commercial products.
• Make changes, sell the changed product.
• never give back the changed source code
• Mostly used by researchers, academics and
  companies
• the IP stack in Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X
  are derived from BSD-licensed software.

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GPL Licenses (Most Restrictive)

• Very popular, most restrictive.
• Restriction
• if you distribute a changed version, you must
  share your changes
• As of August 2007
• GPL accounted for nearly 65 of the free
  software projects listed on the web.
• Used in Linux, Word press

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What do all licenses have in common?

• Free redistribution, no royalties
• Source code must be available, and
  redistributable
• Source code can be modified
• No discrimination against persons or groups
• No discrimination against any field (e.g., it
  cannot say For educational use only)

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Open Source Conferences

• OSBC Open Source Business Conference (March
  2008)
• The Utah Open Source Conference (August 2008)
• The Fourth International Conference on Open
  Source Systems OSS (September 2008)
• Europe Open Source Think Tank (September 2008)
• Open Source Developers' Conference (November
  2008)
• Open World Forum (November 2008)

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Open Source Future

• Open Source will be a strategic tool for open and
  collaborative businesses.
• 40 of jobs in the information technology sector
  will be linked to Open Source applications before
  2014.
• Through 2011, 50 of Global 2000 IT organizations
  will implement a formal open-source adoption and
  management policy.

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Open Source Future

• By 2012, at least 50 of direct IT commercial
  revenue attributed to open-source products and
  services.
• Through 2013, most of mainstream IT projects
  using (OSS) will not achieve cost savings over
  closed-source alternatives.
• 90 of market-leading, cloud-computing providers
  will depend on OSS to deliver products and
  services before 2013.

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References

• Roy T. Fielding. Shared leadership in the apache
  project. Communications of the ACM, 42(4)4243,
  April 1999.
• Brian Fitzgerald. The transformation of open
  source software. MIS Quarterly, 30(3), 2006
• Chris Rasch, "A Brief History of Free/Open Source
  Software Movement", (online) available at URL
  http//www.aptenix.com/history/text.html
• Richard Stallman, "Why Software Should Be Free",
  April 1992(online) available as URL
  http//www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html
• Margit Osterloh, "Open Source Software
  Development Just Another Case of Collective
  Invention?", Research Policy, Elsevier. vol.36,
  pp.147-171, January 2007.
• YANG Lin-cun, "Legal Issues and Countermeasures
  On Open Source Software and its licenses",
  Intellectual Property Publishing House, Beijing,
  pp. 31-67, August2004.
• Chorng-Guang Wu, James H.Gerlach, Clifford E.
  Young. "An Empirical Analysis of Open Source
  Software Developers' Motivations and Continuance
  Intentions", Information Management, Elsevier.
  vol.44,pp.253-262,January2007.
• Feinberg Donald, The Growing Maturity of
  Open-Source Database Management Systems,
  Gartner, November 2008
• Brodkin Jon, Open source impossible to avoid,
  Gartner says, (online) available as
  URLhttp//www.networkworld.com/news/2007/092007-o
  pen-source-unavoidable.html