Open Source Archive

This is an economic analysis of the OSS movement from the journal Policy.

The Open Source software project OpenPKG has established the OpenPKG Foundation, a nonprofit organization providing the ideational, financial, material and manned support of OpenPKG. OpenPKG is an "instrument for deployment and maintenance of Open Source Unix software when administration crosses platform boundaries."

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today released the following article by Richard M. Stallman and Eben Moglen discussing the forthcoming GPL Version 3.

"The nature of the open source community is changing. I'm not exactly sure what "open source community" means anymore. When I first got involved with open source in 1998/99, the community was distinct: It was Eric Raymond, Bruce Perens, Robin Miller, and others like them. Developers. Gear heads. Hackers. Today, it's unclear whether that community still exists in any separate, discernible form." Read more here.

Since most of OSNews' U.S. readers are enjoying their Memorial Day holiday weekend still, here's something for a segment of our Eurpoean readership: Belgian business-oriented tv channel KanaalZ has a (dutch) report on its website on open Source. Two case studies are explored, one of which is the town of Schoten's switch to FOSS for its intranet solution. The opposing case is presented by a Microsoft spokesman.

In the second part of my Open Source advocacy series, Trust and Zeal in Open Source Advocacy, the article covers the importance of trust and the potential risks of zeal in pushing Open Source forward and creating change.

Another wrinkle in the ongoing CherryOS saga: having just announced that they were putting the CherryOS Mac emulator project "on hold" indefinitely (amid accusations that their software was inappropriately using PearPC intellectual property), now the CherryOS web site states: "Due to Overwhelming Demand Cherry Open Source Project Launches 5.1.2005."

Jonathan Schwartz proclaimed ardent support for the open-source software realm but criticized the GPL.

Several new features of the recently released OpenOffice.org 2.0 beta require a Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Since Java's license is neither free nor open source, a small but vocal minority has responded both strongly and negatively.

Some developers are concerned that the introduction of the third version of the GNU General Public License could split the free software world - but the FSF is confident these fears are unfounded.

Before you write off pure open source licensing, ask yourself the following questions: How important is it that my company's modifications to open source code remain private? What does my company gain from the expense of keeping them that way? And finally, what might my company gain from the alternative?

To make it clear: I am not against Open Source Software, in fact, I am for it. But I am increasingly frustrated with Open Source software written by hobbyists; hobbyists who write a specific application or library because they need a specific function out of their applications, for their own needs and only their own needs. Here's what happened: UPDATE: Some explanation here. Make sure you read it first.

Bruce Perens has written an article titled "The Emerging Economic Paradigm of Open Source".

HURD developer Marcus Brinkmann made a historic step and finished the process initialization code, which enabled him to execute the first software on HURD-L4.