Open-source software
Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone and for any purpose.[1][2] Open-source software may be developed in a collaborative, public manner. Open-source software is a prominent example of open collaboration, meaning any capable user is able to participate online in development, making the number of possible contributors indefinite. The ability to examine the code facilitates public trust in the software.[3]
Open-source software shares similarities with free software and is part of the broader term free and open-source software.
Open-source software development can bring in diverse perspectives beyond those of a single company. A 2024 estimate of the value of open source software to firms is $8.8 trillion as firms would need to spend 3.5 times the amount they currently do without the use of open source software.[4]
Open-source code can be used for studying and allows capable end users to adapt software to their personal needs in a similar way user scripts and custom style sheets allow for web sites, and eventually publish the modification as a fork for users with similar preferences, and directly submit possible improvements as pull requests.
Opportunities for participation[edit]
Contributing[edit]
The basic roles OSS participants can fall into multiple categories, beginning with leadership at the center of the project who have control over its execution.[28] Next are the core contributors with a great deal of experience and authority in the project who may guide the other contributors.[28] Non-core contributors have less experience and authority, but regularly contribute and are vital to the project’s development.[28] New contributors are the least experienced but with mentorship and guidance can become regular contributors.[28]
Some possible ways of contributing to open source software include such roles as programming, user interface design and testing, web design, Bug triage, accessibility design and testing, UX design, code testing, and security review and testing.[28] However, there are several ways of contributing to OSS projects even without coding skills.[28] For example, some less technical ways of participating are documentation writing and editing, translation, project management, event organization and coordination, marketing, release management, community management, and public relations and outreach.[28]
Funding is absolutely another terrific way that individuals and organizations choose to contribute to open source projects. Groups like Open Collective provide a means for individuals to contribute monthly to supporting their favorite projects.[29] Organizations like the Sovereign Tech Fund is able to contribute to millions to supporting the tools the German Government uses.[30] The National Science Foundation established a Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) program to support open source innovation.[31]
Industry participation[edit]
The adoption of open source software by industry is increasing over time.[32] OSS is popular in several industries such as telecommunications, aerospace, healthcare, and media & entertainment due to the benefits it provides.[33] Adoption of OSS is more likely in larger organizations and is dependent on the company’s IT usage, operating efficiencies, and the productivity of employees.[32]
Industries are likely to use OSS due to back-office functionality, sales support, research and development, software features, quick deployment, portability across platforms and avoidance of commercial license management.[32] Additionally, lower cost for hardware and ownership are also important benefits.[32]
Prominent organizations[edit]
Organizations that contribute to the development and expansions of free and open source software movements exist all over the world.[28] These organizations are dedicated to goals such as teaching and spreading technology.[28] As listed by a former vice president of the open source initiative, some American organizations include the free software foundation, software freedom conservancy, the open source initiative and software in the public interest.[28] Within Europe some notable organizations are Free Software Foundation Europe, open source projects EU (OSP) and openforum europe (OFE).[28] One Australian organization is linux australia while Asia has open source asia and fossasia.[28] free and open source software for africa (FOSSFA) and openafrica are African organizations and Central and South Asia has such organizations as FLISOL and GRUP de usuarios de software libre peru.[28] Outside of these, many more organizations dedicated to the advancement of open source software exist.[28]
Society and culture[edit]
Demographics[edit]
Despite being able to collaborate internationally, open source software contributors were found to mostly be located in large clusters such as Silicon Valley that largely collaborate within themselves.[49] Possible reasons for this phenomenon may be that the OSS contributor demographic largely works in software, meaning that the OSS geographic location is closely related to that dispersion and collaborations could be encouraged through work and social networks.[49] Code acceptance can be impacted by status within these social network clusters, creating unfair predispositions in code acceptance based on location.[50] Barriers to international collaboration also include linguistic or cultural differences.[51] Furthermore, each country has been shown to have a higher acceptance rate for code from contributors within their country except India, indicating a bias for culturally similar collaborators.[51]
In 2021, the countries with the highest open source software contributions included the United States, China, Germany, India, and the UK, in that order.[49] The counties with the highest OSS developers per capita from a study in 2021 include, in order, Iceland, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, while in 2008 the countries with top amount of estimated contributors in SourceForge were the United States, Germany, United Kingdom, Canada and France.[49] [51] Though there have been several studies done on the distribution and contributions of OSS developers, this is still an open field that can be measured in several different ways.[51] For instance, Information and communication technology participation, population, wealth and proportion of access to the internet have been shown to be correlated with OSS contributions.[51]
Although gender diversity has been found to enhance team productivity, women still face biases while contributing to open source software projects when their gender is identifiable.[52] In 2002, only 1.5% of international open-source software developers were women, while women made up 28% of tech industry roles, demonstrating their low representation in the software field.[53] Despite OSS contributions having no prerequisites, this gender bias may continue to exist due to the common belief of contributors that gender shouldn't matter, and the quality of code should be the only consideration for code acceptance, preventing the community from addressing the systemic disparities in female representation.[38] However, a more recent figure of female OSS participation internationally calculated across 2005 to 2021 is 9.8%, with most being recent contributors, indicating that female participation may be growing.[54]
Motivations[edit]
There are many motivations for contributing to the OSS community.[28] For one, it is an opportunity to learn and practice multiple skills such as coding and other technology related abilities, but also fundamental skills such as communication and collaboration and practical skills needed to excel in technology related fields such as issue tracking or version control.[28] Instead of learning through a classroom or a job, learning through contributing to OSS allows participants to learn at their own pace and follow what interests them.[28] When contributing to OSS, you can learn the current industry best practices, technology and trends and even have the opportunity to contribute to the next big innovation as OSS grows increasingly popular within the tech field.[28] Contributing to OSS without payment means there is no threat of being fired, though reputations can take a hit.[28] On the other hand, a huge motivation to contribute to OSS is the reputation gained as you grow your public portfolio.[28]
Disparities[edit]
Even though programming was originally seen as a female profession, there remains a large gap in computing.[55] Social identity tends to be a large concern as women in the tech industry face insecurity about attracting unwanted male attention and harassment or being unfeminine in their technology knowledge, having a large impact on confidence.[38] Some male tech participants make clear that they believe women fitting in within the culture is impossible, furthering the insecurity for women and their place in the tech industry.[52] Additionally, even in a voluntary contribution environment like open source software, women tend to end up doing the less technical aspects of projects, such as manual testing or documentation despite women and men showing the same productivity in OSS contributions.[52] Explicit biases include longer feedback time, more scrutinization of code and lower acceptance rate of code.[52] Specifically in the open-source software community, women report that sexually offensive language is common and the women’s identity as female is given more attention that as an OSS contributor[38] Bias is hard to address due to the belief that gender shouldn’t matter, with most contributors feeling that women getting special treatment is unfair and success should be dependent on skill, preventing any changes to be more inclusive.[38]
Adoption and application[edit]
Key projects[edit]
Open source software projects are built and maintained by a network of programmers, who may often be volunteers, and are widely used in free as well as commercial products.[56]
Unix: Unix is an operating system created by AT&T that began as a precursor to open source software in that the free and open source software revolution began when developers began trying to create operating systems without Unix code.[24] Unix was created in the 1960s, before the commercialization of software and before the concept of open source software was necessary, therefore it was not considered a true open source software project.[24] It started as a research project before being commercialized in the mid 1980s.[24] Before its commercialization, it represented many of the ideals held by the Free and Open source software revolution, including the decentralized collaboration of global users, rolling releases and a community culture of distaste towards proprietary software.[24]
BSD: Berkely Software Distribution (BSD) is an operating system that began as a variant of Unix in 1978 that mixed Unix code with code from Berkely labs to increase functionality.[24] As BSD was focused on increasing functionality, it would publicly share its greatest innovations with the main Unix operating system.[24] This is an example of the free public code sharing that is a central characteristic of FOSS today.[24] As Unix became commercialized in the 1980s, developers or members of the community who did not support proprietary software began to focus on BSD and turning it into an operating system that did not include any of Unix's code.[24]The final version of BSD was released in 1995.[24]
GNU: GNU is a free operating system created by Richard Stallman in 1984 with its name meaning Gnu's Not Unix.[24] The idea was to create a Unix alternative operating system that was would be available for anyone to use and allow programmers to share code freely between them.[24] However, the goal of GNU was not to only replace Unix, but to make a superior version that had more technological capabilities.[24] It was released before the philosophical beliefs of the Free and Open source software revolution were truly defined.[24] Because of its creation by prominent FOSS programmer Richard Stallman, GNU was heavily involved in FOSS activism, with one of the greatest achievements of GNU being the creation of the GNU General Public License or GPL, which allowed developers to release software that could be legally shared and modified.[24]
Linux: Linux is an operating system kernel that was introduced in 1991 by Linus Torvalds.[24] Linux was inspired by making a better version of the for profit operating service Minux.[24] It was radically different than what other hackers were producing at the time due to it being totally free of cost and being decentralized.[24] Later, Linux was put under the GPL license, allowing people to make money with Linux and bringing Linux into the FOSS community.[24]
Apache: Apache began in 1995 as a collaboration between a group of developers releasing their own web server due to their frustration with NCSA HTTPd code base.[24] The name Apache was used because of the several patches they applied to this code base.[24] Within a year of its release, it became the worldwide leading web server.[24] Soon, Apache came out with its own license, creating discord in the greater FOSS community, though ultimately proving successful.[24] The Apache license allowed permitted members to directly access source code, a marked difference from GNU and Linux's approaches.[24]
Extensions for non-software use[edit]
While the term open source applied originally only to the source code of software, it is now being applied to many other areas such as open source ecology, a movement to decentralize technologies so that any human can use them.[13][57] However, it is often misapplied to other areas that have different and competing principles, which overlap only partially.[38]
The same principles that underlie open-source software can be found in many other ventures, such as open source, open content, and open collaboration. [58][3]
This "culture" or ideology takes the view that the principles apply more generally to facilitate concurrent input of different agendas, approaches, and priorities, in contrast with more centralized models of development such as those typically used in commercial companies.[15]
Value[edit]
More than 90 percent of companies use open-source software as a component of their proprietary software.[59] The decision to use open-source software, or even engage with open-source projects to improve existing open-source software, is typically a pragmatic business decision.[60][61] When proprietary software is in direct competition with an open-source alternative, research has found conflicting results on the effect of the competition on the proprietary product's price and quality.[62]
For decades, some companies have made servicing of an open-source software product for enterprise users their business model. These companies control an open-source software product, and instead of charging for licensing or use, charge for improvements, integration, and other servicing.[63] Software as a service (SaaS) products based on open-source components are increasingly common.[64]
Open-source software is preferred for scientific applications, because it increases transparency and aids in the validation and acceptance of scientific results.[65]