Sunday, October 7, 2007

What is Open Source?

We have Netscape to thank for the term ‘open source’. Netscape decided to release the code to ‘Navigator’, which was their most known product at the time(around 1998). They wanted to “to free themselves of the ideological and confrontational connotations of the term free software”. The term skyrocketed to popularity when it was coined by Tim O’Reilly, a well known publisher in the Tech Industry. Some people have said the term confuses the availability of the code with the freedom to use, modify, and redistribute it. While others have used the term Free/Open-Source Software (FOSS), or Free/Libre/Open-Source Software (FLOSS), consequently, to describe open-source software that is freely available and free of charge. . .


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