BLOG and FORUM about Open Source

• http://opensource.ukm.my/ 

- This website provides a number of things about open source. Among the items found on the website as an introduction This is the portal of the University. In it there are things or bulletin about open source. In addition, there are also some software, video collection and a collection of the lecturers of open source to be a reference point all of us.
 

• http://planet-oss-malaysia.blogspot.com/ 

- Planet Malaysia Open Source Communities blog is a compilation of RSS feeds from all website and blog releated to Open Source In Malaysia. Among the all website such as LinuxMalaysiaBlog, LinuxWave, Planet Malaysia Open Source Comunities and the other website.

• http://linuxwanita.blogspot.com/

- This website is a List of Open Source softwares and solutions. A compilation list of free and open source softwares or applications for windows and Linux. Open Source Softwares are free to download and installed.

• http://tboxmy.blogspot.com/

-This website is a  share ideas on expanding Malaysia to use Open Source Software (OSS) and create an innovative society. It an interest is in OpenOffice.org, LibreOffice, Linux, Moodle, Android, GIMP, Joomla and the list goes on.



Besides that, you all can visit this blog for information about Linux in more detail: 

• http://opensourcecollection.blogspot.com/
• http://myossdevblog.blogspot.com/
• http://fossed.blogspot.com/
• http://open--source.blogspot.com/
• http://brikis98.blogspot.com/2011/04/open-source.html
• http://ubuntuforums.org/
• http://www.linuxforum.com/

• http://www.linuxforums.org 

- This forum was developed is to serve as reference for the students in a learning related to Open Source. The Forum also called articles. Among the forum or articles available in this website is the Install Gnome desktop and Gnome Display Manager on OpenBSD 4.8, Linux boot process and the other articles.
 

•  http://www.mkyong.com/featured/top-10-open-source-forums-in-my-collection/

- There are many free open source forum system (bulletin board, message board) written in PHP, ASP.NET and Perl. Below is a list of my favor free open source forum collections. I only listed out those forum which has detail documentation, good community support.

• http://www.opensource.org/osd.html
  

The indented, italicized sections below appear as annotations to the Open Source Definition (OSD) and are not a part of the OSD. A plain version of the OSD without annotations can be found here.

Promote Open Source Software ( OSS )

The most basic definition of open source software is software for which the source code is distributed along with the executable program, and which includes a license allowing anyone to modify and redistribute the software. Source code is the actual instructions which programmers write to create a piece of software, the "recipe" for the program. 

Once a program has been "compiled" into a form which can be installed and run on a computer, its source code is irretrievable. It is practically impossible to make changes to a program without having a copy of its source code. If a program's license includes the right to modify the program, this right is meaningless unless the source code is readily available.

Actual licenses for OSS vary between different companies and development projects, but they have certain characteristics in common. The Open Source Initiative, a group of developers who disseminate information on the benefits of open source, has posted on its web site a "meta-definition" of basic conditions which they feel should be included in an OSS license.

Previously, we did wrote about advantages of open source software. As you can see, there a lot of advantages in open source software. So, why there still so many people refuse to use open source software and how we can promote and develop interest for them?? Firstly, we have to spread or advertise the advantages of open source software through some resources like :

•    Blog
•    Social network
•    Newspaper
•    Popular forum

Secondly, we can try to invite these people to join or just check open source community or forum. So that they know and can wash away the assumption that using open source software is hard and complicated. Usually in forum, they can get a bit of introduction about open source software.

Thirdly, for those who already show a bit of interest, we need to suggest a few of open source operating system and open source software that use GUI (Graphic User Interface). It’s a perfect strategy to support the beginner. We also can invite them to join the open source community or forum. At there, they can get advise and get a lot of information about open source software.

Fourthly, we can try to burn the assumption that open source software only for poor people by lists a few of big company that use open source software. We also can use personality influence by list a few of famous heir, artist or actor who use open source software.

Lastly, we hope all the suggestion give a big help to promote open source software. By using open source software, user can have financial saving, feel rapid development, avoid lock-in to one supplier and others. It’s important for them to know these advantages to get them interest in open source software and use it.

Finally, as discussed above, open source and open standards go hand in hand. 

•  Simple, open communications protocols and standards of compatibility facilitate OSS development, as they form a fundamental building block of any OSS project.
• OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols, writes Microsoft's Valloppillil.
• Significantly, the strategy proposed in that document for competing against OSS is extending these protocols and developing new protocols, which imply replacing open standards with proprietary ones. 
• It is precisely this sort of predatory practice which the government should oppose, both on antitrust grounds and specifically to prevent Microsoft from using its control of protocols to interfere with OSS development.
• The government should more vigorously lend its support to the open standards developed by industry, such as the Internet Engineering Task Force's standard set.

 

Beside descried  about promote open source above, the most important open source software used by Government has the ability to promote the widespread use and continued development of open source software through its purchasing policies. Not only would many government agencies benefit from the added reliability and security which OSS products provide, but the increased demand for these products would encourage more corporations and independent programmers to embrace OSS methods.  Open source software has natural strengths which benefit individual users. Above and beyond this, the widespread use of open source software holds advantages for the economy as a whole, and it is for this reason that a careful program of government promotion and encouragement would be justified and beneficial.

History Of Open Source

This is a timeline-style look at how free and open-source software has evolved and existed from its inception. The phrase "free software" refers to software that is liberally licensed, allowing the end user more freedoms than conventional-software licences. This is not to be confused with software which is available to the end user at no cost, which is known as freeware. Free software may be distributed with or without charge.

Richard Stallman

• In 1983, Richard Stallman launched the GNU Project to write a complete operating system free from constraints on use of its source code.
• Particular incidents that motivated this include a case where an annoying printer couldn't be fixed because the source code was withheld from users. 
• Stallman also published the GNU Manifesto, in 1985, to outline the GNU project's purpose and explain the importance of free software.
• Another probable inspiration for the GNU project and its manifesto was a disagreement between Stallman and Symbolics, Inc. over MIT's access to updates Symbolics had made to its Lisp machine, which was based on MIT code.

Linus Torvalds

• The Linux kernel, started by Linus Torvalds, was released as freely modifiable source code in 1991.

• The license wasn't a free-software licence, but with version 0.12 in February 1992, Torvalds re-licensed the project under the GNU General Public License. 

• Much like Unix, Torvalds' kernel attracted the attention of volunteer programmers. 

• The combination of the almost-finished GNU operating system and the Linux kernel made the first complete free-software operating system. Among Linux distributions, Debian GNU/Linux, begun by Ian Murdock in 1993, is noteworthy for being explicitly committed to the GNU and FSF principles of free software. 

• The Debian developers' principles are expressed in the Debian Social Contract. Since its inception, the Debian project has been closely linked with the FSF, and in fact was sponsored by the FSF for a year in 1994–1995. 

• In 1997, former Debian project leader Bruce Perens also helped found Software in the Public Interest, a non-profit funding and support organization for various free-software projects. GNU/Linux remains free software under the terms of the GNU GPL, and many businesses offer customized Linux-based products, or distributions, with commercial support. 

• The naming remains controversial. Referring to the complete system as simply "Linux" is common usage. However, the Free Software Foundation, and many others, advocate the use of the term "GNU/Linux", saying that it is a more accurate name for the whole operating system. 

Eric Raymond

• In 1997, Eric Raymond published The Cathedral and the Bazaar, a reflective analysis of the hacker community and free-software principles.
• The paper received significant attention in early 1998 and was one factor in motivating Netscape Communications Corporation to release their popular Netscape Communicator Internet suite as free software. 
• This code is today the basis for Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird.
• Netscape's act prompted Raymond and others to look into how to bring free-software principles and benefits to the commercial-software industry. 
• They concluded that FSF's social activism was not appealing to companies like Netscape, and looked for a way to rebrand the free-software movement to emphasize the business potential of the sharing of source code.

Matthias Ettrich

• KDE was founded in 1996 by Matthias Ettrich, who was then a student at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. At the time, he was troubled by certain aspects of the Unix desktop. 
• Among his concerns was that none of the applications looked, felt, or worked alike. 
• He proposed the creation of not merely a set of applications but a desktop environment in which users could expect things to look, feel, and work consistently. He also wanted to make this desktop easy to use, one of his complaints about desktop applications of the time was that his girlfriend could not use them. 
• His initial Usenet post spurred a lot of interest, and the KDE project was born. 
• KDE is an international free software community producing an integrated set of cross-platform applications designed to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X systems. 
• It is best known for its Plasma Desktop, a desktop environment provided as the default working environment on many Linux distributions, such as Kubuntu, Pardus and openSUSE

The term free Open Source Software

Next, we discuss this free term software in Open Source software to show clearly what must be true about a particular software program for it to be considered free software. From time to time we revise this definition to clarify it. “Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. When talking about free software, it is best to avoid using terms like “give away” or “for free,” because those terms imply that the issue is about price, not freedom.

Free software means that the program's users have the four essential freedoms:

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose

• The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish. Access to the  source code is a precondition for this.

• The freedom to redistribute copies to your friend or neighbor.

• The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others. By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms. Being free to do these things means that you do not have to ask or pay for permission to do so. You should also have the freedom to make modifications and use them privately in your own work or play without even mentioning that they exist. If you do publish your changes, you should not be required to notify anyone in particular, or in any particular way. The freedom to run the program means the freedom for any kind of person or organization to use it on any kind of computer system, for any kind of overall job and purpose, without being required to communicate about it with the developer or any other specific entity.

In this freedom, it is the user's purpose that matters, not the developer's purpose, you as a user are free to run the program for your purposes, and if you distribute it to someone else, she is then free to run it for her purposes, but you are not entitled to impose your purposes on her. The freedom to redistribute copies must include binary or executable forms of the program, as well as source code, for both modified and unmodified versions. It is fine if there is no way to produce a binary or executable form for a certain program, but you must have the freedom to redistribute such forms should you find or develop a way to make them.

If the program's license says that you cannot merge in a suitably licensed existing module for instance, if it requires you to be the copyright holder of any code you add then the license is too restrictive to qualify as free. In order for these freedoms to be real, they must be permanent and irrevocable as long as you do nothing wrong. if the developer of the software has the power to revoke the license or retroactively change its terms without your doing anything wrong to give cause, the software is not free. However, certain kinds of rules about the manner of distributing free software are acceptable, when they don't conflict with the central freedoms. For example, copyleft is the rule that when redistributing the program, you cannot add restrictions to deny other people the central freedoms. This rule does not conflict with the central freedoms, rather it protects them.

“Free software” doesn’t mean “noncommercial.” A free program must be available for commercial use, commercial development, and commercial distribution. You may have paid money to get copies of free software or you may have obtained copies at no charge. But regardless of how you got your copies, you always have the freedom to copy, change the software and even to sell copies. Whether a change constitutes an improvement is a subjective matter. If your modifications are limited, in substance, to changes that someone else considers an improvement, that is not freedom. However, rules about how to package a modified version are acceptable, if they don't substantively limit your freedom to release modified versions, or your freedom to make and use modified versions privately.

Thus, it is acceptable for the license to require that you change the name of the modified version, remove a logo, or identify your modifications as yours. As long as these requirements are not so burdensome that they effectively hamper you from releasing your changes, they are acceptable. Rules that “if you make your version available in this way, you must make it available in that way also” can be acceptable too, on the same condition. Rules that require release of source code to the users for versions that you put into public use are also acceptable.

Advantages of Open Source Software

In the previous post, we explained a little bit about Open Source Software. Other people might ask why Open Source is better than Closed Source. Here we list the advantages of Open Source Software. Usually, the first perceived advantage of open source models is the fact that open source software is made available gratis or at a low cost. 

But this characteristic is not exclusive to open source software, and several proprietary software products are made available in similar ways (a prominent case could be Microsoft's Internet Explorer). All of them combined produce a synergistic impact which is the cause of the real advantages of the open source model. Let us provide some more detail on how do these characteristics turn into advantages: 

• The availability of the source code and the right to modify it is very important. It enables the unlimited tuning and improvement of a software product. It also makes it possible to port the code to new hardware, to adapt it to changing conditions, and to reach a detailed understanding of how the system works.

• The right to redistribute modifications and improvements to the code, and to reuse other open source code, permits all the advantages due to the modifiability of the software to be shared by large communities. This is usually the point that differentiates open source software licenses from ``nearly free'' ones. In substance, the fact that redistribution rights cannot be revoked, and that they are universal, is what attracts a substantial crowd of developers to work around open source software projects.

• The right to use the software in any way. This, combined with redistribution rights, ensures (if the software is useful enough), a large population of users, which helps in turn to build up a market for support and customization of the software, which can only attract more and more developers to work in the project. This in turn helps to improve the quality of the product, and to improve its functionality. Which, once more, will cause more and more users to give the product a try, and probably to use it regularly. 

• Simple license management .When you use open source software, you would no longer need to worry about licenses. Open source software enables you to install it several times and also use it from any location. You will be free from monitoring, tracking or counting license compliance.

• Scaling and consolidating.  Linux and open source software can be easily scaled. With varied options for clustering, load balancing and open source applications, such as email and database, you can enable your organization to either scale up and achieve higher growth or consolidate and achieve more with less.

Outsource open source software development to O2I and benefit from high-quality services at a cost-effective price. Open source software can have a major impact on your entire organization. There are several advantages of using open source software.

All About Open Source Software ( OSS )

What is Open Source Software ?

Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is available in source code form: the source code and certain other rights normally reserved for copyright holders are provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, improve and at times also to distribute the software.

Open source software is very often developed in a public, collaborative manner. Open-source software is the most prominent example of open-source development and often compared to (technically defined) user-generated content or (legally defined) open content movements.

Who create the open source software?

Eric Steven Raymond

Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is an American computer programmer, author and open source software advocate. His name became known within the hacker culture when he picked up maintenance of the "Jargon File" in 1990. After the 1997 publication of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", Raymond became, for a number of years, an unofficial spokesman of the open source movement. 

The open source label came out of a strategy session held on April 7, 1998 in Palo Alto in reaction to Netscape's January 1998 announcement of a source code release for Navigator (as Mozilla). A group of individuals at the session included Tim O'Reilly, Linus Torvalds, Tom Paquin, Jamie Zawinski, Larry Wall, Brian Behlendorf, Sameer Parekh, Eric Allman, Greg Olson, Paul Vixie, John Ousterhout, Guido van Rossum, Philip Zimmermann, John Gilmore and Eric S. Raymond. They used the opportunity before the release of Navigator's source code to clarify a potential confusion caused by the ambiguity of the word "free" in English. 

Why open source have a license?

The expression open source has wide application. For the OSI it also refers to the distinctive software development methodology employed by many open source software projects. The OSI home page starts with 'Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process.' However, the OSI stops short of defining this methodology in the Open Source Definition, which concerns itself only with the requirements of a licence designed to protect this way of developing software.

The open development methodology conflicts with many of the principles of software development normally taught in academia. Open source software, strictly speaking, may or may not be developed using an open development methodology. The choice of this or any other development methodology is dependent upon a project's chosen route to sustainability.

Why Open Source Software Free Software?

The motives (or at least the emphasis) of the people who use the term ``open source'' are sometimes different than those who use the term ``Free Software.'' The term ``open source software'' (a term championed by Eric Raymond) is often used by people who wish to stress aspects such as high reliability and flexibility of the resulting program as the primary motivation for developing such software. In contrast, the term ``Free Software'' (used in this way) stresses freedom from control by another (the standard explanation is ``think free speech, not free beer''). The FSF has a page written by its founder, Richard Stallman, on why the FSF prefers the term ``free software'' instead of ``open source software''

Types Of Open Source Software ( OSS )  

Apache web server

Apache open source Web server software, made a profound impact on the early development of what we now know as the World Wide Web. At a time when the only other option was Netscape Communications Corporation, now known as Oracle, iPlanet Web Server, Apache came into the ring as an effective alternative.

Linux operating system kernel 

The Linux kernel is an operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems^. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software

Firefox web browser 

The Firefox browser is created by Mozilla, a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote openness, innovation and opportunity on the Web.

Sun's Java programming language and environment

Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems (which is now a subsidiary of Oracle Corporation) and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. 

   
MySQL database system

Database based applications are a common type of applications that are widely used, and these applications requires a database system (database engine) to manage their data

FreeBSD Unix operating system 

FreeBSD® is an advanced operating system for modern server, desktop, and embedded computer platforms. FreeBSD's code base has undergone over thirty years of continuous development, improvement, and optimization.

     Sun's 2 OpenOffice  
       OpenOffice.org is both a product and an open-source project. Both have been in existence since October 13th, 2000.The OpenOffice.org project is primarily sponsored by Oracle, which is the primary contributor of code to the project.

    Wire-shark network

     Wireshark is the world's foremost network protocol analyzer. It lets you capture and interactively browse the traffic running on a computer network. It is the de facto (and often de jure) standard across many industries and educational institutions. 

  

Various Of Open Source Software ( OSS ) Web Resource

OSS Website

http://www.oscc.org.my/

 

OSS Repository

 http://mirror.oscc.org.my

 

Mailing List

 http://www.opensource.org/lists 
  http://lists.oscc.org.my/mailman/listinfo

 

Linux Forum

http://www.linuxforums.org/

Usenet Newsgroup

http://www.linux.org/docs/usenet.html

 

Criteria Of Open Source Software ( OSS )

1.      Free Redistribution

§       The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.

2.      Source Code

§       The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form. Where some form of a product is not distributed with source code, there must be a well-publicized means of obtaining the source code for no more than a reasonable reproduction cost preferably, downloading via the Internet without charge. The source code must be the preferred form in which a programmer would modify the program.

3.      Derived Works

§       The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.

4.      Integrity of the Author's Source Code

§      The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source code.

5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Group

§       The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.

6.No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

§      The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor.

7. Distribution of License

§      The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by those parties.

8.  License Must Not Be Specific to a Product

§       The rights attached to the program must not depend on the program's being part of a particular software distribution. If the program is extracted from that distribution and used or distributed within the terms of the program's license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the original software distribution.

9.License Must Not Restrict Other Software

§      The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software

10.  License Must Be Technology-Neutral

§       No provision of the license may be predicated on any individual technology or style of interface.