“The future is open source everything” - Linus Torvalds
And here’s an excellent post on why open source rocks.
What is Open Source?
Open source describes general practices in production and development which promote access to the end product’s sources, with the philosophy emphasising collaborative development. Read more about what Open Source is at Wikipedia.
An excellent example of Open Source techniques in practice is a wiki, a web site that can be edited directly by people browsing it. Here’s a quick (and slightly funny) run through of what a wiki is and how and why it works. Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit - is an incredible testament to the power of the wiki. However Wikipedia is not without it’s problems, find more out at Wikipedia-Watch.
Open Source Software
The most prominent face of the Open Source movement is Open Source Software which has gathered momentous pace and credibility of late, and is outputting some amazing technologies and applications in the I.T. world, really giving power to the people. Applause to all those behind the countless Open Source projects and encouragement to everyone to consider using and supporting these projects.
The movement was initiated by Richard Stallman when he announced the plan for the GNU operating system in September 1983. Besides his technical brilliance and passion in the area of software architecture and programming, Stallman has done a great deal politically and socially for the whole open source movement <warm-applause/>.
How can you get involved in Open Source Software?
- Are you using Firefox as your web browser? It’s a great browser with many great features like tabbed windows, multiple search bar with plenty of add ons.
- Consider using Linux as your operating system. It’s fast becoming the tool of not only computer boffins, with various very user friendly Linux builds making the installation process much simpler!
- Software like:
- OpenOffice - free office suite for windows, mac or linux
- Wine - an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of X and Unix.
might be making Micro$oft start waving farewell to your money?!
- LimeWire - Not only an Open Source piece of software fastest P2P File Sharing Program on the Planet.
- Check out DMOZ the OpenSource search engine and web directory.
- Create a blog (an online diary) with any of these excellent free blogging packages on your website, or create a free one in 1 min using WordPress’s own hosting here
- Build dynamic web pages/applications with PHP. Harness the power of MySQL databases.
- SourceForge the world’s largest Open Source software development web site, hosting more than 100,000 projects, and giving free support and services to them.
- Electronic Frontier Foundation is a nonprofit group of passionate people ó lawyers, technologists, volunteers, and visionaries ó working to protect your digital rights.
