A brief introduction to Open Source

An Ecotopia 2002 workshop

Who is this article for?

• It was written for the people attending the Open Source workshop at Ecotopia to save them from taking notes.
• This short introduction aims at people that use computers in their office and are for whatever reason looking for alternatives to Microsoft products.

The aims of the workshop were:

• Create an awareness of alternatives to commercial software products for the PC
• Raise interest in open source principles
• Encourage migration to Linux
• Discuss the idea of running non-software related projects as "open source"
• Networking; bring open source interested Ecotopians together

Open Source - No secrets

• Open Source software is available for free, created by open-minded people and based on some communistic ideas.
• The source code (human-friendly written language that is basis for every computer program) lays "open" - it comes with the software or is available for download on the Internet. Big software corporations keep their sorce code a well guarded secret to prevent other people from copying their ideas.
• The users of open source software can change and extend the source code themselves and distribute their changes to other users - the software evolves constantly and is designed by the people who use it.
• The communication between developers is almost completely done over the Internet, by e-mail, discussion boards and web tools.
• The website SorceForge is home of most open source projects and offers useful tools for development teams for free.
• The planning, design and programming is done by individuals in their spare time. Big projects are sponsored by corporations like Sun or Netscape (AOL TW) by employing developers that work full time on open source projects and supplying of infrastructure (servers, bandwidth).
• Software users can take part in the development by suggesting features, reporting bugs (software mistakes) and working on non-technical tasks like translation.
• As in most voluntary work there are no strict hirarchies and no tight deadlines. Individuals take responsibility for their work. This means less pressure, an honest motivation through self-fulfillment, resulting in better software and more experimenting.
• The Ecotopia camp site was an open source project in some ways: "Developers" openly share their knowledge with other developers and there also are "users" that just benefit from the developers great work. Some users start developing.
• If new bugs or security issues are discovered they are discussed openly and bug fixes are developed as soon as possible. It is common practice of software corporations to keep software issues secret for marketing reasons.
  
• One big success story of open source is Linux, an alternative operating system for your PC to Microsoft Windows. Linux is completely free, it is known for being more secure, faster and more stabile than Windows. It is very flexible in its uses, from controlling a coffee machine to calculating the weather forecast and running servers.
• There are companies selling Linux together with a printed handbook, an easy to use install program, configuration tools and technical support in so called Linux distributions. Known brand names are Redhat, Mandrake, Lindows and SuSE. These companies earn money from offering services around Linux, not from selling the right to use Linux.
• The biggest success of Linux is being the backbone of the Internet. 30% of all Internet servers are already running on Linux. 60% of all websites use the open source product "Apache" as their WWW server software. The numbers are growing fast.
• Most software was developed and distributed as open source since the beginning of computer history. In the early 80s Microsoft started earning money by not giving code away, but only a license for using their software. In the middle of the 90s Linux grew big and now is on its way to overtake closed-source software.
• Also the popular peer-to-peer networks for sharing media files over the internet are based on open source programs and standards like Gnutella.

An Alternative?

• There are open source products available for servers, company networks, office use, web browsing and sound/video editing. Some of them also run under Windows!
• If you don't like Word use OpenOffice.org!
• If you don't like Internet Explorer use Mozilla (Netscape7 is based on Mozilla)!
• If you don't like Windows use Linux!
• You can setup your PC as dual boot, so you decide if you want to use Windows or Linux when you switch in your PC.
• There are only a few viruses that affect Linux. Due to the Linux architecture viruses can not do much harm.
• Your local Linux user group will help you with your questions on migrating to Linux.

What can you do?

• Use an open source product whenever there is an alternative around.
• Ask your system administrator to install OpenOffice.org or Mozilla on your Windows PC.
• Ask your boss if you use Linux in your company network (or if you plan to), ask why or why not.
• Make your work open source (publish on the Internet, share knowledge by documentation, let other people influence you).
• Tell your friends about the advantages of Open Source.

Links

• Ecotopia 2002: www.ecotopia2002.org
• SorceForge: www.sourceforge.net
  
• Mozilla: www.mozilla.org
• OpenOffice: www.openoffice.org
  
• Open Source Initiative: www.opensource.org
• A list of Open Source Software for Windows: www.jairlie.com/oss
  
• About Gnutella: www.bearshare.com/gnutella.htm
• Linux viruses? www.claws-and-paws.com/virus/articles/linux_viruses.shtml
• Linux user groups worldwide: lugww.counter.li.org
  
• Irish "Open Source" design: www.mash.ie
  

Thanks

• First of all I'd like to say thanks to the people that showed up in the "Army tent" (which was none) at Ecotopia: Sjors, Eamonn, Michael, Igor, Henrik, Hamish and Stephe.
• Also thanks to Eimeir, Kate, Anne-Marie, Orlaith and Mark for their support. =)