Originally, the term Open Source referred to Open Source Software (OSS, short for Open Source Software). Open Source software is code designed to be publicly accessible.
Open Source according to Red Hat
What does Open Source mean?
Originally, the term Open Source referred to Open Source Software (OSS, short for Open Source Software). Open Source software is code designed to be publicly accessible.
Anyone can view it, modify it and distribute it according to their own needs.
It is developed through a decentralised, collaborative approach based on “peer review”, that is, reviews carried out by colleagues and IT professionals, and on the work of the community.
Because it is developed by communities rather than by a single company or individual, Open Source Software proves to be a more economical, flexible and long-lasting solution than proprietary software.
No longer referring only to the production of software, Open Source has become the new organisational model based on innovative ways of working.
Leveraging a decentralised production model and open values, the Open Source movement is constantly looking for new formulas to overcome the challenges faced by communities and by the sectors in which they operate.
The history of Open Source is the history of the Internet
In the 1950s and 1960s, the researchers working on the first Internet technologies and the first network protocols for telecommunications relied on an open, collaborative research environment.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), which later became the foundation of today’s Internet, supported an open working process that encouraged the sharing of reviews and feedback among colleagues and IT experts.
User groups collaborated on writing source code and shared it.
By the time the Internet was born in the early 1990s, the values of collaboration, peer review, communication and an Open approach were already concepts destined to become its foundations.
What is the difference between free, closed and Open Source software?
For a long time, Open Source Software was labelled as “free software”.
The free software movement originated in 1983, when Richard Stallman, its official founder, launched the GNU project.
The free software movement revolved around the idea of user freedom: the freedom to view the source code, modify it, distribute it and make it available to the user according to their needs.
Free software is the counterpart of proprietary or “closed source” software. The latter, being highly protected, is accessible only to the owners of the source code, who hold the exclusive legal rights.
Closed source code cannot legally be modified or reproduced, and the user pays to use the software “as is”, without being able to alter it for new uses or share it with the communities.
The term “free software”, however, gave rise to ambiguous interpretations. “Free software” does not necessarily imply freedom of ownership, but freedom of use according to one’s own needs.
The community tried to clear up the misunderstanding with the definition “Free as in freedom, not as in beer” (free as in free speech, not as in free beer), underlining the contrast in meaning between “free” as in freedom and “free” as in free of charge.
Christine Peterson, who coined the term “Open Source”, tried to solve the problem by replacing “free software” with “Open Source”: “the problem with the term ‘free software’ lay not so much in its political connotation as in the fact that, above all, less experienced people focused on the question of price.
So the need had emerged to find a new name that would shift the focus onto the source code and would not be ambiguous”.
Peterson had proposed replacing “free software” with “Open Source” to a working group that was partly devoted to introducing the practices of Open Source software into the market.
The group wanted to make the world understand that shared software, and therefore collaborative, open and modifiable software, was better because it could be used in different ways according to one’s own needs.
By escaping the vendors’ monopoly, it was more flexible, economical and long-lasting.
In 1997 Eric Raymond, an authoritative member of a working group, introduced these themes in his essay “The Cathedral and the Bazaar”. Partly in response to this essay, in 1998 Netscape Communications Corporation released its source code as free software, making its Mozilla project Open Source.
In its Open Source form, that code then became the basis of Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird.
Netscape’s support for Open Source Software forced the community to think about how to highlight the practical, business-related aspects of the free software movement.
This is how the split between Open Source and free software took shape: “Open Source” would be the term used to indicate the legal aspects relating to methodology, production and the way business activities are conducted. “Free software”, on the other hand, would be used to emphasise the philosophical side of the same themes, focusing on the concept of user freedom.
At the beginning of 1998 the Open Source Initiative, or OSI, was founded, thus formalising the expression Open Source and establishing a common definition shared across the whole sector.
Although the Open Source movement was still viewed with suspicion, between the end of the 1990s and the early 2000s it went from being a marginal movement in software production to becoming today’s industry standard.
What are the advantages for end users of using free and Open-Source software?
The most obvious advantage of these licences is that the software can be redistributed free of charge. The example of Ubuntu Linux will make this concept clear: unlike Windows, you can install or distribute as many copies of Ubuntu as you like, without restrictions.
If you are setting up a server, you can simply install Linux on it. If you are setting up a virtualised cluster of servers, you can easily duplicate a single Ubuntu server.
You don’t have to worry about licences or about the number of copies of Linux you can run.
An Open-Source program is also more flexible.
For example, the new interface of Windows 10 disappointed many Windows users, even the most loyal ones.
When a Linux desktop (the graphical interface shown on screen) such as Ubuntu introduces a new desktop interface, users have more options.
For example, when GNOME 3 was released, some people stayed with the old version, GNOME 2, and modified it to make it work on the latest Linux distributions – hence the birth of MATE.
Others adopted the GNOME 3 Desktop and modified it to make it work the way they preferred – hence the birth of Cinnamon – while still other users switched to existing alternative desktops.
If Windows were Open-Source, Windows 10 users would have more choice and flexibility.
Just take a look at CyanogenMod, a popular Linux distribution, based on the Android community, which adds features and support for new devices.
This is not an exhaustive description – entire books have been written on the subject – but you should now have a better idea of what Open Source Software actually is and why it is useful compared with a closed platform such as Microsoft’s Windows: no Windows user can take the Windows 8 interface, modify it and make it work properly in Windows 10.
Which projects have come from the world of free and Open-source software?
Open-Source software also allows developers to “stay ahead of the giants of the IT world” and create their own software.
Great projects such as Android and Chrome OS are nothing other than operating systems based on Linux and other Open-Source software.
The core of Apple’s OS X – and therefore of iOS – is entirely based on Open-Source code. Does that seem a small thing to you?
Here is another example: the famous Cloud was born thanks to virtualisation, which originated in the Linux world and then became the complex, sophisticated system that we all know and use.
Not to mention the various programs for graphics, for CAD and CAM design and much more.
Open-Source and free software are not just abstract concepts or free programs: they have given software a great boost and great innovation, anticipating highly advanced services that were unthinkable until a few years ago.
Our commitment
Red Hat is a provider of Enterprise software with an Open Source development model. Everything we do is designed for the communities: from the products we create, to the culture we embrace, to the solutions we design with our customers. The success of community projects enables our customers to achieve their own goals. That is why we are always at their side.
Our tools
Participation: Red Hat takes part in creating upstream projects in collaboration with the community.
We contribute to writing code and collaborate on producing content, on support and mentoring projects, as well as on promoting events.
Integration: Red Hat integrates upstream projects, promoting the platforms of the Open Source community.
We work in partnership with other companies, integrating industry-leading technologies into our projects.
Stabilisation: closely linked to a broad ecosystem of services and certifications, Red Hat brings these platforms and projects to market, while continuing to contribute to the upstream projects it is part of.
Our commitment to Open Source
Open Source software draws its strength from diverse communities of developers all over the world.
That is why for over 25 years we have been working to invest in open projects and technologies, to protect and defend Open Source intellectual property, and to recruit developers who actively take part in open projects across the entire IT stack.
This experience helps inform our development model to produce more innovative, interactive, stable and secure technologies.
Collaboration beyond our teams
By drawing on the collective talent and innovation of Open Source communities, we believe we can create better software.
This collaboration helps power much of the technology we use today, from Open Source platforms such as Linux and Kubernetes to Open Source browsers such as Firefox and Chromium.
Creating better technology with Open Source: in Red Hat’s own words.
As the largest Open Source company in the world, we believe that using an open development model helps create more stable, secure and innovative technologies.
At Red Hat, we have spent more than two decades collaborating on community projects and protecting Open Source licences so that we can keep developing software that pushes the boundaries of what technology can do.
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