The Open Source Alternative

Download or read book The Open Source Alternative written by Heather J. Meeker and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-05-02 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a user manual for understanding and deployment of open source software licensing in business. Written for lawyers and businesspeople alike, it explains and analyzes open source licensing issues, and gives practical suggestions on how to deal with open source licensing in a business context. Including useful forms, information, and both technical and licensing background, this book will help you avoid legal pitfalls and edcuate your organization about the risks of open source.

Download or read book How Open Source Ate Software written by Gordon Haff and published by Apress. This book was released on 2018-08-21 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Learn how free software became open source and how you can sell open source software. This book provides a historical context of how open source has thoroughly transformed how we write software, how we cooperate, how we communicate, how we organize, and, ultimately, how we think about business values. You’ll look at project and community examples including Linux, BSD, Apache, and Kubernetes, understand the open source development model, and how open source has influenced approaches more broadly, even proprietary software, such as open betas. You'll also examine the flipside, the "Second Machine Age," and the challenges of open source-based business models. Today, open source serves as shorthand for much broader trends and behaviors. It’s not just about a free (in all senses of the word) alternative to commercial software. It increasingly is the new commercial software. How Open Source Ate Software reveals how open source has much in common, and is often closely allied, with many other trends in business and society. You'll see how it enables projects that go beyond any individual company. That makes open source not just a story about software, but a story about almost everything. What You'll Learn Understand open source opportunities and challenges Sell software if you’re giving it away Apply open source principles more broadly to openorg, devops, etc. Review which organizational incentives you can implement Who This Book Is For Anyone who has an interest in what is happening in open source and the open source community, and anyone who is contemplating making a business that involves open source.

Download or read book Open Sources written by Chris DiBona and published by "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". This book was released on 1999-01-03 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freely available source code, with contributions from thousands of programmers around the world: this is the spirit of the software revolution known as Open Source. Open Source has grabbed the computer industry's attention. Netscape has opened the source code to Mozilla; IBM supports Apache; major database vendors haved ported their products to Linux. As enterprises realize the power of the open-source development model, Open Source is becoming a viable mainstream alternative to commercial software.Now in Open Sources, leaders of Open Source come together for the first time to discuss the new vision of the software industry they have created. The essays in this volume offer insight into how the Open Source movement works, why it succeeds, and where it is going.For programmers who have labored on open-source projects, Open Sources is the new gospel: a powerful vision from the movement's spiritual leaders. For businesses integrating open-source software into their enterprise, Open Sources reveals the mysteries of how open development builds better software, and how businesses can leverage freely available software for a competitive business advantage.The contributors here have been the leaders in the open-source arena: Brian Behlendorf (Apache) Kirk McKusick (Berkeley Unix) Tim O'Reilly (Publisher, O'Reilly & Associates) Bruce Perens (Debian Project, Open Source Initiative) Tom Paquin and Jim Hamerly (mozilla.org, Netscape) Eric Raymond (Open Source Initiative) Richard Stallman (GNU, Free Software Foundation, Emacs) Michael Tiemann (Cygnus Solutions) Linus Torvalds (Linux) Paul Vixie (Bind) Larry Wall (Perl) This book explains why the majority of the Internet's servers use open- source technologies for everything from the operating system to Web serving and email. Key technology products developed with open-source software have overtaken and surpassed the commercial efforts of billion dollar companies like Microsoft and IBM to dominate software markets. Learn the inside story of what led Netscape to decide to release its source code using the open-source mode. Learn how Cygnus Solutions builds the world's best compilers by sharing the source code. Learn why venture capitalists are eagerly watching Red Hat Software, a company that gives its key product -- Linux -- away.For the first time in print, this book presents the story of the open- source phenomenon told by the people who created this movement.Open Sources will bring you into the world of free software and show you the revolution.

Download or read book Open Source written by Moreno Muffatto and published by Imperial College Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, the way open source software is developed has taken hold as a valid alternative to commercial proprietary methods, as have the products themselves, e.g., the Linux operating system, Apache web-server software, and Mozilla Firefox browser. But what is open source software? How is the open source community organized? What makes this new model successful? What effects has it had and might it have on the future of the IT industry, companies and government policies? These and many other questions are answered in this book. The first chapter gives a brief history of the open source community and the second chapter takes a close look at the relationship between intellectual property rights and software, both open source and proprietary. The next three chapters consider the who, the open source community, the how, software development both within and outside the community, and the what, open source projects and product quality. Chapters 6 and 7 focus on the different users of open source software: companies and governments respectively. These are followed by two chapters that interpret the phenomenon, first from an organizational point of view in Chapter 8 and then using the theory of complex adaptive systems in Chapter 9. The last chapter explores the current and potential applications of the concept underlying open source software in other fields. Sample Chapter(s). Chapter 1: History of Open Source (189 KB). Contents: History of Open Source; Software and Intellectual Property Rights; The Organization of the Open Source Community; Software Development Models; Open Source Products and Software Quality; Strategies and Business Models; Government Policies Towards Open Source Software; New Trends in Work Organization; Open Source as a Complex Adaptive System; Developments. Readership: Postgraduate students, academicians and practitioners in the field of technology management.

Download or read book Pro Freeware and Open Source Solutions for Business written by Phillip Whitt and published by Apress. This book was released on 2015-08-29 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pro Freeware and Open Source Solutions for Business is a practical guide for the small business owner seeking viable alternative to expensive commercial software packages and subscriptions. This comprehensive look at the powerful alternatives to expensive proprietary software provides an illustrated overview of no-cost software solutions. In this book you will find free and open source solutions for office productivity, PDF creation, accounting, image editing and graphic design, desktop publishing, 3D design, CAD, audio and video editing, website and blog creation, customer relationship management, point of sale, networking and security, and alternatives to the Windows and Macintosh operating systems. This guide helps free the cost-conscious business owner from the bonds of expensive proprietary software by exploring the free and powerful alternatives that exist. You can save a substantial sums of money by replacing just a few commercial software titles with free and open source solutions. Learn how with Pro Freeware and Open Source Solutions for Business today.

Download or read book Open Source for the Enterprise written by Dan Woods and published by "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". This book was released on 2005-07-27 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Open source software is changing the world of Information Technology. But making it work for your company is far more complicated than simply installing a copy of Linux. If you are serious about using open source to cut costs, accelerate development, and reduce vendor lock-in, you must institutionalize skills and create new ways of working. You must understand how open source is different from commercial software and what responsibilities and risks it brings. Open Source for the Enterprise is a sober guide to putting open source to work in the modern IT department. Open source software is software whose code is freely available to anyone who wants to change and redistribute it. New commercial support services, smaller licensing fees, increased collaboration, and a friendlier platform to sell products and services are just a few of the reasons open source is so attractive to IT departments. Some of the open source projects that are in current, widespread use in businesses large and small include Linux, FreeBSD, Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL, JBOSS, and Perl. These have been used to such great effect by Google, Amazon, Yahoo!, and major commercial and financial firms, that a wave of publicity has resulted in recent years, bordering on hype. Large vendors such as IBM, Novell, and Hewlett Packard have made open source a lynchpin of their offerings. Open source has entered a new area where it is being used as a marketing device, a collaborative software development methodology, and a business model. This book provides something far more valuable than either the cheerleading or the fear-mongering one hears about open source. The authors are Dan Woods, former CTO of TheStreet.com and a consultant and author of several books about IT, and Gautam Guliani, Director of Software Architecture at Kaplan Test Prep & Admissions. Each has used open source software for some 15 years at IT departments large and small. They have collected the wisdom of a host of experts from IT departments, open source communities, and software companies. Open Source for the Enterprise provides a top to bottom view not only of the technology, but of the skills required to manage it and the organizational issues that must be addressed. Here are the sorts of questions answered in the book: Why is there a "productization gap" in most open source projects? How can the maturity of open source be evaluated? How can the ROI of open source be calculated? What skills are needed to use open source? What sorts of open source projects are appropriate for IT departments at the beginner, intermediate, advanced, and expert levels? What questions need to be answered by an open source strategy? What policies for governance can be instituted to control the adoption of open source? What new commercial services can help manage the risks of open source? Do differences in open source licenses matter? How will using open source transform an IT department? Praise for Open Source for the Enterprise:"Open Source has become a strategic business issue; decisions on how andwhere to choose to use Open Source now have a major impact on theoverall direction of IT abilities to support the business both withcapabilities and by controlling costs. This is a new game and onegenerally not covered in existing books on Open Source which continue toassume that the readers are 'deep dive' technologists, Open Source for the Enterprise provides everyone from business managers to technologistswith the balanced view that has been missing. Well worth the time toread, and also worth encouraging others in your enterprise to read as well." ----Andy Mulholland - Global CTO Capgemini "Open Source for the Enterprise is required reading for anyone workingwith or looking to adopt open source technologies in a corporateenvironment. Its practical, no-BS approach will make sure you're armedwith the information you need to deploy applications successfully (aswell as helping you know when to say "no"). If you're trying to sell opensource to management, this book will give you the ammunition you need.If you're a manager trying to drive down cost using open source, thisbook will tell you what questions to ask your staff. In short, it's aclear, concise explanation of how to successfully leverage open sourcewithout making the big mistakes that can get you fired." ----Kevin Bedell - founding editor of LinuxWorld Magazine

Download or read book The Success of Open Source written by Steve WEBER and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-06-30 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much of the innovative programming that powers the Internet, creates operating systems, and produces software is the result of "open source" code, that is, code that is freely distributed--as opposed to being kept secret--by those who write it. Leaving source code open has generated some of the most sophisticated developments in computer technology, including, most notably, Linux and Apache, which pose a significant challenge to Microsoft in the marketplace. As Steven Weber discusses, open source's success in a highly competitive industry has subverted many assumptions about how businesses are run, and how intellectual products are created and protected. Traditionally, intellectual property law has allowed companies to control knowledge and has guarded the rights of the innovator, at the expense of industry-wide cooperation. In turn, engineers of new software code are richly rewarded; but, as Weber shows, in spite of the conventional wisdom that innovation is driven by the promise of individual and corporate wealth, ensuring the free distribution of code among computer programmers can empower a more effective process for building intellectual products. In the case of Open Source, independent programmers--sometimes hundreds or thousands of them--make unpaid contributions to software that develops organically, through trial and error. Weber argues that the success of open source is not a freakish exception to economic principles. The open source community is guided by standards, rules, decisionmaking procedures, and sanctioning mechanisms. Weber explains the political and economic dynamics of this mysterious but important market development. Table of Contents: Preface 1. Property and the Problem of Software 2. The Early History of Open Source 3. What Is Open Source and How Does It Work? 4. A Maturing Model of Production 5. Explaining Open Source: Microfoundations 6. Explaining Open Source: Macro-Organization 7. Business Models and the Law 8. The Code That Changed the World? Notes Index Reviews of this book: In the world of open-source software, true believers can be a fervent bunch. Linux, for example, may act as a credo as well as an operating system. But there is much substance beyond zealotry, says Steven Weber, the author of The Success of Open Source...An open-source operating system offers its source code up to be played with, extended, debugged, and otherwise tweaked in an orgy of user collaboration. The author traces the roots of that ethos and process in the early years of computers...He also analyzes the interface between open source and the worlds of business and law, as well as wider issues in the clash between hierarchical structures and networks, a subject with relevance beyond the software industry to the war on terrorism. --Nina C. Ayoub, Chronicle of Higher Education Reviews of this book: A valuable new account of the [open-source software] movement. --Edward Rothstein, New York Times We can blindly continue to develop, reward, protect, and organize around knowledge assets on the comfortable assumption that their traditional property rights remain inviolate. Or we can listen to Steven Weber and begin to make our peace with the uncomfortable fact that the very foundations of our familiar "knowledge as property" world have irrevocably shifted. --Alan Kantrow, Chief Knowledge Officer, Monitor Group Ever since the invention of agriculture, human beings have had only three social-engineering tools for organizing any large-scale division of labor: markets (and the carrots of material benefits they offer), hierarchies (and the sticks of punishment they impose), and charisma (and the promises of rapture they offer). Now there is the possibility of a fourth mode of effective social organization--one that we perhaps see in embryo in the creation and maintenance of open-source software. My Berkeley colleague Steven Weber's book is a brilliant exploration of this fascinating topic. --J. Bradford DeLong, Department of Economics, University of California at Berkeley Steven Weber has produced a significant, insightful book that is both smart and important. The most impressive achievement of this volume is that Weber has spent the time to learn and think about the technological, sociological, business, and legal perspectives related to open source. The Success of Open Source is timely and more thought provoking than almost anything I've come across in the past several years. It deserves careful reading by a wide audience. --Jonathan Aronson, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California