What is the Future of Open Source Software

What is the Future of Open Source Software in Education? A Personal Inquiry By Carl Forde For EDUC 804

Agenda What is Open Source Software? Why are schools interested in it? Where is it being used? What are some of the issues in using it? What is its likely future?

What Is Open Source Software? Definition: Free Redistribution Source Code Derived Works Integrity Of The Author's Source Code No Discrimination Against Persons Or Groups

What Is Open Source Software? Definition con't: No Discrimination Against Fields Of Endevour Distribution Of License Must Not Be Specific To A Product License Must Not Restrict Other Software License Must Be Technology Neutral

Open Source Software Is Not Most vendor supplied products “Shared-source” Anything with “strings” on how you or others may use the software

Why Open Source? Origins in the Gnu's Not Unix system Founded by Richard M. Stallman (RMS) “I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. ” -- Richard Stallman

How Is Openness Enforced? Copyright law: in particular the GNU General Public License (GPL) created in 1989 Sometimes called the “copyleft” license Open Source Initiative and the term “Open Source Software” formed in 1998

Some OSS Examples Linux Free. BSD Apache Mozilla Open. Office. org BIND GNOME

How Big Is OSS Community? Sourceforge. net currently hosts over 71, 00 projects with over 736, 00 developers November, 2003

Who Writes Free Software? Key highly knowledgeable major developers (top 5% of developers) -- Charles-Antoine Gauthier Skilled and experienced professionals working in IT-related jobs -- Karim R. Lakhani, Robert Wolf

Who Writes Free Software? Hackers: enthusiasts, artists, tinkerers, problem solvers, experts Abide by principles of good development and an unwritten code of ethical development and dissemination behaviour -- Anne H. Moore

Open Source Culture Pyramid meritocracy via virtual project management Leadership roles based on skill availability belief in the project community -- Walt Scacchi

Why Write Open Source Software? The software has in-house value Price is right Sense of belonging to a community Pride in quality -- Charles-Antoine Gauthier

Why Are Schools Interested? Cost! Control upgrades No licensing restrictions Flexibility -- Thomas Warger

Where Is It Being Used? Research Administrative e-Learning Platforms Desktop Students

What Are Some Of The Issues? Resistance due to lack of familiarity distrust in “free” vendor lock-in missing features

What Are Some Of The Issues? Switching server platforms has little direct impact on ordinary workers Skills / Habits retraining --Jason Dedrick, Joel West

What Are Some of the Issues? Influences: Relative advantage Compatibility Trialability --Jason Dedrick, Joel West

Future of OSS in Education Open Source and Commercial Software likely to co-exist -- Andrea Bonaccorsi, Cristina Rossi Open Source communities via compatibility with existing standards can overcome proprietary standards --Jean-Michael Dalle, Nicolas Jullien

Future of OSS in Education Open Source movement has reached a critical mass --Benoit Demil, Xavier Lecocq Linux will perhaps never replace Windows in our offices -- Jean-Michael Dalle, Nicolas Jullien

Future of OSS in Education Research: verifiable code => verifiable results -- Vincent Kiernan Open Source is no guarantee of interoperability Open Standards provide a strong foundation of interoperability -- James Dalziel

Future of OSS in Education OSS is a “disruptive technology” a different set of benefits at lower cost -- Anne H. Moore

Future of OSS in Education Open-source will enlarge the aperture of any lens focused on the future of higher education, shedding light on highly collaborative processes designed for creating excellent tools and materials that are reliable, affordable, and accessible for Information Age activities. -- Anne H. Moore