by Minh Tran

Created on: March 07, 2009

The OpenSource movement is one of the most interesting phenomena that have been taking place in the world of technology. Its horizontal, egalitarian approach to programming and coordination has been dismissed as being idealistic, impractical, hence unsustainable. However, over the last two decades, it has prevailed and prospered. Therefore, observing and learning about OpenSource movement and its softwares worths one's time. There is no lack of resources and discussion, which will provide a lot of insightful and fascinating information. It should also be kept in mind that "open-sourced software" is not synonymous with "free software" although the majority of open-sourced softwares are also free: "open sourced" is all about sharing ideas, receiving criticisms, and nurturing innovation. Hence, it refers more to an attitude and an approach to programming than to the issue of price and profit.

The first way to know more about the OpenSource movement and its softwares that first comes to mind is directly experiencing it, mostly through the Internet, which is also its ancestral home (the first programming project that applied the open-source approach was the development of what would become today's Internet itself, so open source is indeed not so new an idea as one may think). There are major nodes in the OpenSource network that can be good starting points, depending on one's interest. A good site, which is quite representative of the vibrant world of open source softwares, is SourceForge.net, the haven for the majority of OpenSource projects. Many new projects are announced daily there together with their codes, and the discussion there is lively and provides real life example about how people actually work with open source approach. The most successful projects like OpenOffice, Ubuntu, and Mozilla have their own home sites and forums which naturally are also worth looking at.

For those who like to read, the literature has quite a few interesting writings on the topic of open-sourced softwares and their creators. "The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and OpenSource by An Accidental Revolutionary" by Eric Raymond, as its name suggests, is a discussion on the network and hence more horizontal and egalitarian approach to teamworking which is the uniqueness and strength of the OpenSource world. "The Daemon, the GNU, and the Penguin" by Peter Salus, its electronic version available at groklaw.com, traces the history of open-sourced softwares and the movement associated with them. On a more personal note, "Open Sources: Voices from the OpenSource Revolution", which comes in two volumes, is a collection of essays by prominent figures in the OpenSource world such as Richard Stallmand or Linus Torvald (they are considered "tribal elders" rather than leaders in the conventional sense, but they are influential nonetheless). All those books are engaging and insightful about open-sourced softwares and the so-called "hacker culture" (contrary to non-techie stereotype, "hacker" refers not to IT thieves but to those who have substantial contribution to the art of programming. Thus it is one of the most honourable in the geeks' world).

As said above, open-sourced softwares and OpenSource are interesting to observe, and it does not take profound technical background to know more about them. The recommended materials recommended above are just the stepping stone for getting into this exciting world.

Learn more about this author, Minh Tran.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.