What is open source?

Simple: you can read the code.You can see how it’s made.

Two main characteristics....first, it’s free as in beer

Second (much more important and interesting), it’s free as in freedom.

Richard M.Stallman

Richard M.Stallman is the founder of the free software movementFour basic freedoms

Four freedoms

• The freedom to run the program for any purpose

• The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs

• The freedom to redistribute copies

• The freedom to improve the program

Why is this cool?

Potential.

One of these is full of potentialOne of these is sterile

Anyone can do whatever they like with it.NEA: Nobody owns it, Everyone can use it, Anyone can improve it

Improved in terms of quality“With enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow”

Improved in terms of quantity of code (functionality)People add layers on top of other people’s code

As the code base grows, the potential growsImproves chances of it being used for something not intended by the originator

All fine in theory, what about in practiceReputation for being ugly...maybe beautiful on the inside

Lots of companies quietly making a fortuneValued at $23 billion

Firefox, Thunderbird, smaller ones such as Fennec$60m a year

Shock, horror!FreeBSD 5. Bundles over a hundred of the most popular Open Source products.Safari. Based on Webkit. Open source.

BT make money from their hardware, which uses Linux.

Open source ProprietaryCost of licence £0.00 $$$!Cost of upgrade £0.00 $$$!Cost of change £0.00 / Time $$$ / Time / Impossible

Ability to reconfigure Unlimited VariableAbility to innovate High LowAbility to extend High LowAbility to develop Varied Varied

Look and Feel Poor Poor

A cool, calm, totally unbiased comparison of the merits of both open

source and proprietary software

Why? Let’s look at benefits. NOT from agency view, but from business owners view.Ability to innovate - your business may depend on this. Software companies daren’t read feedback from customersLook and Feel - our Open Source Show And Tell event shows us they are investing in this.

Vendors ask customers what they wantFord: If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would’ve asked for faster horsesOpen source is the demand side supplying itself

Two types of licence:

Permissive

Copyleft

Permissive licences = you can do whatever you want (example: BSD)Copyleft = Opposite of copyright, rather than adding restrictions you’re removing them (example: GPL). “Join the Family”. Derived works must keep this licence. Freedoms are preserved. IF you distribute improvements, you must re-publish on these terms.

Community is as important as the codeBuilding, SupportingHiring

MotivationsCredibility in peer group, altruism, real passion for the product, fun, creativity....and maybe even money

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Evolution of open source:First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.Proprietary vendors have fought against open source (SCO case), now claiming their products work well with open source.

9 Examples (many of these are arguably best of breed, and improving all the time): Firefox - 200 million users2003: Internet Explorer had ~99% of the browser marketQ4 2008 Browser Share; Internet Explorer 68.12%, Firefox 21.34%, Safari 7.93%

Webkit - Safari and Google Chrome

Drupal - Version 7 being released early next year

Wordpress has been downloaded 4,636,629 timesWell over 4 million blogs on Wordpress.com too

Mediawiki200 languagesWikipedia: staff of 25 people, 4th - 9th most popular site in the world

80 languagesWorks with Microsoft office files50 million downloads in 5 months - but one download can be shared

Ubuntu - over 10 million userspopular on netbooks netbooks

Open BSD - at the heart of Mac OS X

Apache - runs 100 million web site servers. Most popular by far. 46% of all servers on the web.

What I believe in

Educated choice.

In the spirit of giving credit where it’s due...

Creative Commons

• mag3737 for “Open”

• Orin Optiglot for “Choices”

• ruSSeLL hiGGs for “FREEDOM IS A TOILET TISSUE”

• Tambako the Jaguar for “Beer bubbles 1”

• eecue for “RMS: Richard M.Stallman”

• scragz for “Bored”

• lombo311 for “Old School Smoker!”

• ~Dezz~ for “Father of the Eye - HDR”

• Skip The Budgie for “lego_relativity”

• BluFlowr for “Trifle”

• phoenixdailyphoto for “Boring”

• Adactio for “Hackers”

• David Laribee for “Geek Credibility Photo”

• World of Oddy for “Happy Hippie, Blue Meanie”

Thanks!

THANKS!