Free software movement

The free software movement (FSM) or free and open-source software movement (FOSSM) is a social movement with the goal of obtaining and guaranteeing certain freedoms for software users, namely the freedom to run the software, to study and change the software, and to redistribute copies with or without changes. Although drawing on traditions and philosophies among members of the 1970s hacker culture and academia, Richard Stallman formally founded the movement in 1983 by launching the GNU Project.

Stallman founded the Free Software Foundation in 1985 to support the movement.

Philosophy

The philosophy of the movement is that the use of computers should not lead to people being prevented from cooperating with each other. In practice, this means rejecting "proprietary software", which imposes such restrictions, and promoting free software, with the ultimate goal of liberating everyone in cyberspace – that is, every computer user. Stallman notes that this action will promote rather than hinder the progression of technology, since "it means that much wasteful duplication of system programming effort will be avoided. This effort can go instead into advancing the state of the art".

Open-source movement

The open-source movement is a broad-reaching movement of individuals who support the use of open source licenses for some or all software.. Open source software is made available for anybody to use or modify, as its source code is made available. Some open-source software is based on a share-alike principle, whereby users are free to pass on the software subject to the stipulation that any enhancements or changes are just as freely available to the public, while other open-source projects may be freely incorporated into any derivative work, open-source or proprietary. Open source software promotes learning and understanding through the dissemination of understanding. The main difference between open-source and traditional proprietary software is in user and property rights, the conditions of use imposed on the user by the software license, as opposed to differences in the programming code. With open source software, such as OpenOffice.org, users are granted the right to both the program's functionality and methodology. With proprietary software programs, such as Microsoft Office, users only have the rights to functionality. Examples of popular open source software products include Mozilla Firefox, Google Chromium, Android and OpenOffice.org.

Open source

In production and development, open source as a development model promotes universal access via a free license to a product's design or blueprint, and universal redistribution of that design or blueprint, including subsequent improvements to it by anyone. Before the phrase open source became widely adopted, developers and producers used a variety of other terms. Open source gained hold with the rise of the Internet, and the attendant need for massive retooling of the computing source code. Opening the source code enabled a self-enhancing diversity of production models, communication paths, and interactive communities. The open-source software movement arose to clarify the environment that the new copyright, licensing, domain, and consumer issues created.

Generally, open source refers to a computer program in which the source code is available to the general public for use and/or modification from its original design. Open-source code is meant to be a collaborative effort, where programmers improve upon the source code and share the changes within the community. Typically this is not the case, and code is merely released to the public under some license. Others can then download, modify, and publish their version (fork) back to the community. Today you find more projects with forked versions than unified projects worked by large teams.

Open source (disambiguation)

Open source denotes that a product includes permission to use its source code, design documents, or content (see open source and open content – the latter deals with non-software deliverables or where the distinction between source code and other content is unclear or complex).

It may also mean:s

Specific products

Licensing

Society and culture

Open Source (radio show)

Open Source is an American public radio show hosted by Christopher Lydon, former New York Times journalist and original host of The Connection. The show focuses on the arts, literature, and foreign affairs.

History

In May 2005, Christopher Lydon and his longtime producer Mary McGrath partnered with University of Massachusetts Lowell's radio station WUML, WGBH (FM), and Public Radio International to produce Open Source as a daily call-in radio program. The show was syndicated by 32 NPR stations, before it was canceled on October 16, 2006. In 2007, Lydon moved to Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies to podcast hourlong conversations under the name Open Source. In 2013, Lydon and McGrath returned to WBUR to produce Open Source as a weekly show.

Schedule

Open Source airs twice a week on WBUR, Thursday night at 9pm and Sunday afternoon at 2pm. The Open Source podcast reaches listeners in over 150 countries each week. Open Source also produces ongoing series on its website, including "Reading Chekhov," a reading of Anton Chekhov's short stories by Boston actors and academics, and "Parachute Radio," international conversations from Ghana, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Jamaica, Singapore and Cuba.