1st Article
Voices from the Open Source Revolution#
Open source, with its culture and innovative business models, might have started a new era by shaking the foundation upon which business is conducted. The open source revolution is gathering momentum and fanatics. Let us start where it all begun: the IT world. Why give for free, software that can be sold? This might sound irrational and ias such is an important paradigm shift. Beware open source are not only for extremist, many companies are basing their entire strategy upon open source. There is no free lunch in the competitive business world... Innovation brings disruption, and disruption results in the creation of new business opportunities and models. As with any revolution, there will be both losers and winners. Opportunities are there for the taking. With open source, the power balance is shifting slowly but surely towards smaller countries, smaller companies, and also to individuals, who can display talent and innovation. Recently on a trip to Kuala Lumpur, together with Red1, leader of Adempiere (one of the leading open source business software), we met Malaysian officials to discuss about how the Malaysian government can start an open source initiative upon Adempiere. Some Europeans governments (eg Germany) would not consider implementing non-open source IT systems. My point is open source matters and is now anchored in the cultural, political and economical arena. I hope by now, if you are still reading and not bored to death, that I have caught enough of your attention to have yourself ask: what the hell is open source? Well, the software world is divided into two school of thoughts: the proprietary against the open source model eg. Windows v/s Linux, Microsoft Office v/s Open office, just to name a few...
I believe that the best way to understand what one means by open source, is to grasp the one fundamental characteristic that sets it apart from proprietary software. So here we go... in open source, the source code for a piece of software is made available to all (sorry for geek gibberish!). Is that all there is to it: giving away the source code? This is the basis of a fundamental change: the availability of the source code means that any programmer can see and modify it to better suit his or her needs and redistribute the improved version to other users. Through their interaction and collaboration, a whole ecosystem will help to improve the software both in terms of quality and functionality.
From a user perspective, you can freely download and use open source software without the need of paying expensive licensing fees. For example, go to openoffice.org and you can have a full office suite for free. You can find virtually find any type of software with an open source license for any of your needs. Try www.sourceforge.net (over 140,000 project and 1.5 millions registered users) and www.freshmeat.net.
May the source be with you!
Alexandre and Frederick Tsang Mang Kin
Posterita
- Title taken by the book written by Di Marco et al.
