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Open Source Operating Systems Movement

THE MOVEMENT TOWARDS OPEN SOURCE

There have been two directly opposing movements since the dawn of human civilization. The first movement felt that any information should be openly shared with the general community. The continuous development of tools and machinery is a direct result of this sharing. On the other side are the believers in ownership of ideas, and “intellectual property rights”. While honors have been more or less equally shared between the two camps, it must be admitted that the believers in proprietary rights have made most money. But the battle between the two concepts has plagued many of our best inventions, by impeding progress. History seems to be repeating itself, in the world of digital computing. Open Source Operating Systems versus Proprietary Operating Systems is the subject of discussion in this review.

The FSM

The FSM (Free Source Movement) was not necessarily a movement to make Operating Systems “free” of any cost or price, though that was also a part of it. The main battle was the search for an “Open Source” computing/programming language, which would disclose the code to users to make any changes they needed to make to achieve their objectives. In 1971, young Richard Stallman joined the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, aiming to make significant contribution to the development of computing platforms. But by the early 80’s, the bunch of gifted developers and scientists who were at the Lab had left for greener pastures in the private industry, and the Lab was extinct. But Stallman persisted in his dream, and in 1984, started his GNU Project. In 1985, the FSF (Free Software Foundation) was launched. FSF declared its aim as giving the Users the freedom to do the following:

  • Change or modify software as they, the Users, desire or need.
  • Update copies, free of charge or for a token price.
  • Have the freedom to distribute the versions created by them, for the benefit of the whole Community.
  • Duplicate UNIX OS such that a new system would allow them to have total control of the project.

Stallman, by the 90’s, had introduced the concept of “copyleft”, which was a follow up on “copyright”. In this format, the program was first copyrighted, then terms added to make distribution, reuse, change and modification, free. This he called “copyleft”, and to this we owe the genesis of Open Source Operating Systems.

The Open Source

In 1998, Netscape released the Mozilla Project. Eric Raymond led a group of free-thinking scientists and programmers in Palo Alto to choose a suitably apt name for the Movement and its free product. Long discussions ensued, until finally Christine Peterson suggested “Open Source”, which was universally accepted. Then, finally, the first truly Open Source computing language was launched. The great Finnish American inventor Linus Torvalds came up with Linux.

Linux

In 1999, the young Linus Torvalds and Red Hat released Linux, the first successful Open Source Operating System, after years of dedicated research. It was to be the parent and progenitor of the triumphant marchers of Freedom in the Digital world. While still a student at the University of Helsinki, Torvalds had started developing Linux, a system similar to MINIX, a UNIX operating system. The Industry now began to take interest in the Open Source project, with IBM investing US$1 Billion in Linux. In 2000, Microsystems developed OpenOffice.org, and disclosed the source code of its latest platform, StarOffice Suite. The Open Source Movement was on its way.

At the heart of Linux is the Kernel. The Linux Kernel is at the core on the Linux Operating System. It is the layer that interfaces the Applications with the Hardware. In other words it acts as the intermediary. But other components are also necessary, in addition to the Kernel, to create a useful and effective OS. These components may include Graphical User Interfaces, System Libraries, Web Browsers, Email Utilities and other Programs. When Torvalds wanted to install the UNIX OS on his computer (that was the research tool at universities in those days), he found that the least expensive UNIX available was for about US$5000. This research led to the development of the Linux and Linux Kernel. Working with over a hundred developers, Linus introduced Version 1.0 of the Linux Kernel in March 1994. Linux is not an UNIX derivative, and it was written from scratch. Since then, Linux distributions have become the most numerous OSs in the world. It is at the heart of some of the most popular Linux distributions, such as, Debian, UBUNTU, Fedora, FLES (SuSE Linux Enterprise Server), OpenSuSE, and Linux Mint.

The most popular OS for Smart Phones is Android. Apart from iOS, which it leaves far behind, Android has no other competitor in the Smart Phone world (even Microsoft Windows). Android is fully derived from Linux, and is an Open Source Operating Systems.…

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WHAT IS OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE?

Open source is something that is made publicly accessible to everyone. Open source software is a software that is programmed by a specific organization which is built in such a way that anyone can inspect, modify and enhance it. Open source software, abbreviated as OSS, has to follow certain criteria such as:

  • It must be freely distributed.
  • External users must be allowed to modify the code and this modified code must be allowed to redistribute.
  • Source code must be included within the program.

Today, OSS embraces and celebrates the initiative of open exchange of code, rapid prototyping, community oriented development and transparency within the software development environment.

There are two types of formats for an open source: compiled and non-compiled. It allows a huge area of software development for all, whereas in a traditional software, these services are restricted to copyright holders. Another advantage is that it enables quicker software repairs and lead to higher quality applications.

Advantages of OSS are:

  • Software redistribution
  • Source code integrity and availability
  • Distribution of licenses
  • Anti-discrimination
  • Code can be easily improved and tested
  • Gives an opportunity for developers or beginners to improve their programming skills
  • It is more secure than any other proprietary one as any bug if present, can be immediately found and fixed
  • It can be very helpful to analyze long term projects since these kinds of software are subjected to changes all around the world and the project developers can clearly see the different modern approaches and implement their project accordingly.

There are different licenses provided to these softwares. They are:

  • MIT license
  • GNU GPL 2.0
  • GNU GPL 3.0
  • Apache License 3.0
  • BSD License 3.0

Commercial software cannot be open source since the entire software is copyrights reserved and is intended only for that organization alone and cannot be modified or changed by any other third party.

Today everyone having access to the internet can get benefitted of open source. Nowadays whenever we deal with any gadgets such as mobile phones, laptops, emails, other useful softwares in our system, everything is connected over a global network that is managed by a class of open source softwares. Nowadays system can be accessed from anywhere by using the concept of remote computers. In order to store so much data, cloud computing is the most emerging paradigm that is used. Cloud computing has a vast amount of services that are also made as open source. Examples include NextCloud, owncloud etc.

Open source software is given more preference due to following reasons like: control, security, training and stability.

One important point to be noted is that not all open source softwares are charged for free. Few open source softwares are chargeable. Again, it depends on the software owner. Few of the softwares are charged only for their licensing. Few are charged for the overall infrastructure, services and license. Few are absolutely free. Open source software provides a means of collaborating ideas of different individuals, sharing ideas, transparency and encouraging different people to code and develop a better software altogether. …

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GitHub’s Importance to Open Source Communities

Open source has become the de facto way to build open source programs not only in technology but also across diverse industries. Companies use their source code programs to build their own commercial products and services as they also need strategic value of contributing back to the society. But diving into open source programs without proper understanding of how the projects and communities operate can lead to frustrations for the companies as well as the open source communities. Github is very important to open source communities as it is home to over 40million developers working together to host, review and manage software together.

Why contribute to open source

It might be impossible to find an organization that doesn’t benefit from open source software. Companies like Intel, IBM and Samsung have entire open source programs devoted to contributing to open source communities. Many companies such as Tinder, Bumble, OkCupid rely on open source software since it is critical to the success of the company. Since its inception more than 13,500 developers along with more than 1,300 companies have contributed to the Linux Kernel.

As much as most of these contributions come from organizations that want to give back to the community. There are plenty of strong business reasons to contribute to open source software projects within the organizations.

Benefits

When you rely on open source software the best place to find people who know about the project is inside and outside the community. Whenever you work publicly in the community you get to attract individuals who view that they can work on their favorite open source project and get paid. Whenever the employees of a company are working alongside open source professionals then they can help the company identify good fits for the company.

Another importance of Github to open source communities is low maintenance cost. Companies that start fixing bugs or add new features and functionality to open source projects without giving them back to the upstream project end up with a great challenge of upgrading or adding security features that may drive maintenance cost to the roof. Installing those changes to the mainstream project will automatically include future updates without having to incur additional features.

When it comes to open source projects new features and functionality come from contributions that are inevitably influences the projects direction. In case you want a project that offers functionality that is important to your organization then you need to have contributors who can implement potential changes. Free Fuckbook App and other hookup apps utilize this collaboration often in order to implement a hive mind when creating new functions to improve UX and UI on their platforms.

How open source projects are managed

At first glance open source projects may look to be very chaotic however, people who are new to open source often wonder how group of random people can make codes separately and end up with the same product. Almost every open source project has the same structure and the best projects governance have clearly described. The exact governance model varies widely across the projects and there are some commonalities:

  • There should be a leader who is responsible for making the final decisions regarding features, releases as well as other activities. In most cases it is a single person.
  • Most of the leader’s delegate some of the decisions to individuals who are responsible form maintaining specific parts of the project. These people are known as maintainers.
  • Some projects also have groups of people who have contributed to the project and considered reliable and responsible to be allowed to commit to some parts of the project.
  • There are a lot of people who are contributors to open source projects which have code documentation. These contributions are usually subject to review from an experienced committer.
  • Users are the most important part of the group to the growth and development of an open source project. The users basically give the project a purpose and help it evolve. The valuable features of the community in this case are able to provide feedback about certain features, bug reports among many more.

There is one underlying theme in regards to open source projects and the underlying factor is that every project is different. Every time you join an open source project keep it in mind that you will to spend some quality time around the project and get to understand how it works.

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WHAT IS GOOGLE OPEN SOURCE?

Open-source software is one type of computer software in which the source code is released under a license. In this license, the copyright holder grants users the exclusive rights to study, change, and sell the software to anyone for various purposes. Open source is more than just about the code. It includes planning that happens before writing the system, the process of how that code is used and creating a community-friendly environment.

Google has helped in bringing better technology to the world by launching its open-source software. The Google company believes that open source is the technology for everyone, whether experienced or inexperienced. Google open source is open and freely available for all people. It enables and encourages the development of technology. Google open source helps us in solving real-world problems.

CREATING GOOGLE OPEN SOURCE

Google has a staunch belief in its open source and wants to help you contribute to the community. There are many legal implications whenever a Google user releases a code. So the google company has a specific process that you must follow that helps google comply with its legal obligations. Typically if you are talking about anything illegal this will be excluded along with grey area material such as fuck sites, sex apps, pornography, and other adult content.

IMPORTANCE OF GOOGLE OPEN SOURCE

Many reasons highlight the importance of why Google has launched the google open source, for example; building better software or establishing a standard regime.

COMPONENTS OF GOOGLE OPEN SOURCE DOCUMENTS

Google open source has three major components:

Creating: creating includes how Google asks users to release code which they have written. This code is either in the form of a new project or a patch to an existing old plan. This process is used for small scale and large scale projects. Creating includes:

Releasing code is open-source: This is the process for issuing new open source projects to the world. The release process applies to different projects.

Preparing for release: this process further includes steps like:

  • Naming the project, licensing the project and Packaging the project
  • Including a readme file, a license file, a contributing file and source code headers
  • Third-party components
  • Porting the build
  • Scrubbing the comments
  • Including a code of conduct
  • Reviewing the project
  • Choose the appropriate tools 
  • Staging the code for review

Getting approval: After preparing the project and staging the code on a Cloud Source Repository, a launch entry must be created. Once the launch is created, the following steps must be taken:

  • Ensuring all reviewers have read access to the code.
  • Address any comments posted by the launch reviewers.
  • Waiting for approval.

Choosing a hosting option

Releasing and publicizing: this includes Cryptography compliance, Required disclaimer, Discussion forum, Publishing apps in Google Play and web store, Creating your repository, publishing your code, Importing into Google, and letting the world know.

  • To accept contributions from google as well as non-google users.

Using: using explains how to bring an open-source code into the company and use it for building great products. Google catalogs many packages for maintaining license compliance. Using includes:

  • Third-party code: the third party is the repository where all non-Google code, binaries, and data is checked. Using third-party code saves time, and it is very consistent. To use any third-party code, google imports it and places its source in the third party repository. The third-party deposit is a personal repository that contains all third party open source codes.
  • Licenses: Google needs to comply with open-source licenses for all software that is externally distributed. Most of the software is distributed under a pre-vetted license.
  • Adding code to the third party: Adding a new code to the third party takes a small amount of time. After adding code to the third party, it can be updated generously without having to repeat this process. These are the steps you should follow:
  1.  Get the code
  2. Put the code in the third-party repository.
  3. Get the code working with Google
  4. Document the code and its context
  5. Get a review
  • Responsibilities of third party owners and third party users: the third-party is a shared codebase. It is expected that google users work together in maintaining the health of the repository. As such, there are rules that users are expected to follow.
  • The one version rule: This rule applies to two different versions of a single package, or separate copies having different package names under third-party.
  • Reviewing: Reviewing extras to Google’s massive cache of third-party code helps Google ensure that it’s using the third party code properly.
  • Growing: growing describes some of the program google runs inside and outside the company for supporting open source communities. Growing includes:
  1. Student Programs: Supporting the next generation of open-source developers
  2. Peer Bonus Program: Rewarding source developers who contribute to software that is used by Google.
  3. Events and Funding.
  4. Blog and Social Media: telling the world about the Google open – source.
  5. Ambassadors: Working with Google users around the world.

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