Open-source software

Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that permits users to study, change, improve and redistribute the software.

Spreading of Open-source software
Free and open-source software has become a mainstream phenomenon in the twenty-first century and is pervasive today. (From the software used by organizations, open-source is expected to rise to thirty percent by mid-2012. In 2011, about thirty percent of the total software expenditures in the United States were for the development of prepackaged software; thirty-five percent were for custom-developed software; and thirty-five percent for the development of software for internal uses. )

The Linux operating system is one of the most widely known examples of collaboratively developed open-source software. However, it is only one of many thousands of such projects. Many mainstream companies, such as IBM, are contributing substantial resources in support of Linux and other open-source projects.

Software companies that provide open-source software to their customers generally recoup their investments through the sale of services (e.g., to install, maintain, or customize the software) or complementary assets (e.g., proprietary add-on programs that perform specialized functions).

OSS as a gift culture
In his essay "Homesteading the Noosphere", noted computer programmer Eric S. Raymond pointed out that free and open source software developers are a 'gift culture'.

He notes that gift cultures are adaptations not to scarcity but to abundance. They arise in populations that do not have significant material-scarcity problems with survival goods. We can observe gift cultures in action among aboriginal cultures living in ecozones with mild climates and abundant food. We can also observe them in certain strata of our own society, especially in show business and among the very wealthy.

In gift cultures, social status is determined not by what you control but by what you give away.

Within it, there is no serious shortage of the `survival necessities'—disk space, network bandwidth, computing power. Software is freely shared. This abundance creates a situation in which the only available measure of competitive success is reputation among one's peers.

Links

 * Open Institutional Structure (pdf) by Feng Deng, 2011
 * Open Source Philosophy (video) from Open Source Ecology, February 2013

See also:  at Wikipedia