Open Source movement

From OpenSourcePhilosophy

The basic idea behind open source is very simple: When programmers can read, redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves.

• The Open Source Initiative, “Site Index,” August 2005.

The Open Source Software Movement and Its Partisans

The Open Source movement has gathered much attention in newspapers, websites, books, and television in recent years. When utilizing the terminology of movement, it is not in the sense of a consciously organized, ideological vanguard; but a complex of observable phenomena that present some sense of shared becoming (more on this at sourc(e/ing). There are numerous projects within—and diverse appellations for—the family of projects that has organized about the creation of software (called alternatively “Free,” “Libre,” and “Open”). The discussions, arguments, and ideologies that underpin the various designations of the movement—often referentially coagulated into the name of FLOSS (Free-Libre-Open-Source-Software)-- reveal many shared conceptualizations of the guiding processes of software production and maintenance within the overlapping communities (whose differences are not reconciled through this agreement). There are strongly voiced differences within the ideological leadership of the various manifestations of this drift, however the bulk of those members who write, contribute, use and popularize the software around which the movement is built, recognize a kinship in the various areas, even when arguing for political ideology or practical negotiation with the diverse mechanisms and organizational apparatuses of early twenty-first century human life on earth.