On Novemeber 30th, 2005 Steven Weber released his book The Success of Open Source in the Harvard University Press. For my Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software (HFOSS) class my professor asked us to read the third chapter of Weber's book, titled What Is Open Source and How Does It Work? By no means do I feel comfortable formatting the article in the way most articles are formatted where paragraphs simply flow together. Instead I'll be taking the format the my professor had given the class as a rough outline.
Who:
Steven Weber - Professor of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
What:
The Success of Open Source - Chapter 3: What Is Open Source and How Does It Work?
Where:
Although I have posted a link to the Amazon page for the book, below I have a link for a PDF version of Chapter 3.
Chapter 3: What Is Open Source and How Does It Work?
When:
Published November 30th, 2005
The Gist:
What Is Open Source and How Does It Work does a great job of covering the general idea and origins of the Open Source Software movement. It tells an outline of the story of Linus Torvalds and the origins of Linux, but merely graces over the Free Software Foundation only mentioning the organization twice in the chapter. It ends mentioning how while all Open Source projects are joined by the idea of sharing source code that they all differ in how they are organized.
The Good:
- The Free Software Foundation is mentioned
- The sense of community between Open Source developers is mentioned.
- Mentioning that reusing code is encouraged, there's no sense in reinventing the wheel.
The Bad:
- The difference between Free Software and Open Source Software was not made clear
- On page 74 of the book (24 of the PDF) Weber uses the term "Scratch an Itch" I feel that this method causes developers to expect rewards from the community, rather than have rewards be a special occasion.
- The chapter makes several comments on division of labor at the beginning, and then holds off until the end to describe how several major Open Source projects divide their labor.
The Questions:
- How should new developers get into the Open Source community?
- In what ways can Open Source licenses be applied to games without compromising the work of the artists who put work into such games?
- At what point should developers say that the wheel is outdated and needs to be reinvented?
Overall I found this chapter to be informative for someone who is not already familiar with the world of Open Source Software. That being said certain people in my HFOSS class may not have gotten as much out of it because of our previous experiences with the Open Source community. As an article for newcomers I would rate it a 9 out of 10. I personally believe that more work should have been put forth to mention the Free Software Foundation and the distinction between Free Software and Open Source Software, but that's an ideal thought, and we live in a far from ideal world.