'Open source' demystified

Image from anterotesis.com

Everyone’s first impression of open source software (OSS) concurs more or less with the Wikipedia definition- “practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials”. Many a times, it is not uncommon to see the terms shareware, freeware and OSS used in a rather loose sense. I tried to read up and disambiguate the terms for myself; and here's a primer:

Public domain software – Software with no ownership or copyright whatsoever (Can’t think of any known example in this category.

Freeware or Open source software – Licensed software that is available for free; however someone does retain the copyright ownership for the source.  One can do most things as in a public domain software (modify, improve, customize), but are always legally bound by the terms of the license it is under. For example under the GPL license, licensees need to share their customizations with the community, thereby enforcing communal access to the intellectual property. With patents, license compatibilities, etc. the agreements can be quite complex and users (organizations in particular) need to clearly understand the implications of these.

Shareware – Licensed software that offers limited (in terms of usage, time, features, etc.) trial for free, eventually expecting a subscription or commercial contribution. An example which we use everyday is the WinRAR archiver.

All that said, we need to understand that the term ‘open source’ has come to address a broad philosophy than just a methodology. Along with the idea of shared source, comes the idea of community development. As observed by this blog the true value of sharing lies in the fact that other developers can modify and improve what already exists. At the same time, that doesn't mean that open source efforts will automatically produce better results or higher quality. Good project governance and best practices are still critical to drive results.