Open Source Software

As you start to deploy more multimedia, it's helpful to understand the movements that underpin the explosion of user-generated content – and how best to navigate some of their key issues as a blogger.

First off, take a look at your tools. Chances are good that many owe their existence to the Free Software movement: the computer world's Summer of Love, which stretched from the 70s into the mid-80s. Developers decided to share code around, instead of hoarding trade secrets. And this cooperation started a tsunami of programs and widgets.

A quirk of the English language caused a great deal of confusion around the word "free," referring here to a freedom to distribute the software as opposed to price. (Think "free speech," not "free beer".) To avoid seeming anti-commercial, geek-speak shifted to the term "open source". In fact, there are no restrictions on charging money for open source software – many companies prosper providing easy installation packages and support for often complex systems.

The key to the open source software is the license, the most common of which is the GNU General Public License (GPL), launched by Richard Stallman – an American hacker, developer and software freedom activist – in 1983. In short, it allows anyone to download the code for any open source project and modify at will. However, if they try to sell those changes as a new product, they have to make the source code available as well. Granted it's a little more complicated than that, but you get the gist...

Proprietary developers, like Microsoft, claim that sharing intel makes it easier for someone to find and exploit flaws. Thus, they argue, maintaining opaque source code provides security itself. Open-source advocates counter that when bugs are exposed, a waiting army of engineers springs into action happily. Those programmers are motivated by the fact that their businesses are running this software: they want the quickest, most elegant fix possible.

As more companies find open source products to their liking, they are willing to donate money and developers to those projects. Several years ago, IBM invested heavily in a tool called Eclipse. From a business standpoint, it was cheaper to devote some cash and brainpower to an existing project than to reinvent the wheel in-house. While its improvements are available to everyone else – including competitors – IBM has a large say in the direction of development, insuring Eclipse will meet the company's future needs.

Current power players in the open source arena include Apple, Google, Firefox and Linux – an incredibly stable, Unix-type operating system.