The changing face of freeware

Whether it's called freeware or open source software, the popularity of software that is either given away or provided at a nominal price along with its source code is growing rapidly. There are numerous examples of popular open source software, including the Linux operating system and the market leading Apache Web server. With its increasing popularity, freeware is beginning to challenge long held concepts about software development and distribution. Developers give away software for a number of reasons. Netscape recently turned Navigator into open source software in an effort to regain market share captured by Microsoft's Internet Explorer (which is also distributed at no cost but without the source code) and to boost the sale of Netscape's server software and related products. Developers also give away software and source code to get users to sample their creations or to encourage independent programmers to enhance a product. In addition, many developers give away software because they support an open, independent “freeware culture” in which software is available to all developers, who can then use, adapt, and improve it as they see fit     

Developing an information systems infrastructure with open source software

Up to now, most open source software deployments have been in invisible infrastructure applications running on back-office servers (GNU/Linux, Apache, and so on). Beaumont Hospital in Ireland recently started developing its overall information systems infrastructure by deploying more visible desktop and front-office open source applications in addition to GNU/Linux and Apache. In a two-phase open source implementation, Beaumont will save over /spl euro/ 20 million over five years.     

A critical look at open source

In recent years, open source software - more properly, free and open source software - has emerged as one popular solution to the so-called "software crisis". Advocates regard F/OSS as an agile, practice-led initiative that addresses three key issues namely cost, time scale and quality. F/OSS products are usually freely available for public download. The collaborative, parallel efforts of globally distributed developers allow many F/OSS products to be developed much more quickly than conventional software. Many F/OSS offerings are recognized for their high standards of reliability, efficiency, and robustness; products such as GNU/Linux, Apache, and Bind have become "category killers" stifling the incentive to develop any competing products.     

Is the open-source community setting a bad example?

My, how the world has changed. IBM is now backing Apache, Netscape has put an extraordinary amount of useful software out into the open, and vendors such as Metrowerks, Sybase and Oracle have released versions of their tools to run on a give-away operating system. It seems that the open-source movement-Linux, Perl, Apache, and their many cousins-has finally hit the big time. But my, how the world has stayed the same. EGGS (a derivative of the Free Software Foundation's GNU C++) is one of the few compilers around that has kept pace with the ANSI standard, but CVS, the open-source version control system, is 1O years behind equivalent commercial offerings. Linux is now more robust than some commercial varieties of Unix, but it's impossible to compare the reliability of open-source project management tools to that of Microsoft Project because the former don't exist     

Apache and Eclipse: Comparing Open Source Project Incubators

A two-stage incubation model based on analysis of Apache and Eclipse processes might help other organizations build their own incubation process and better manage risks. The popularity of free and open source software has boosted the creation of several kinds of communities around F/OSS projects. Successful communities such as GNU, Mozilla, the Apache Software Foundation, and the Eclipse Foundation drive innovation while delivering high-quality, enterprise-class software. Yet, because communities are composed of loosely coordinated contributors mainly guided by practice, no shared agreement exists on a single set of methods and processes.     

Two Years of Broken Crypto: Debian's Dress Rehearsal for a Global PKI Compromise

A patch to the OpenSSL package maintained by Debian GNU/Linux (an operating system composed of free and open source software that can be used as a desktop or server OS) submitted in 2006 weakened its pseudo-random number generator (PRNG), a critical component for secure key generation. Putting both servers and users at risk, this vulnerability affected OpenSSH, Apache (mod_ssl), the onion router (TOR), OpenVPN, and other applications. In this article, the author examines these issue and its consequences. OpenSSL is an open source library implementing the SSL (Secure Socket Layer) and TLS (Transport Layer Security) protocols. Several widely deployed applications on many OSs rely on it for secure communications, particularly Linux and BSD-based systems. Where in use, it's a critical part of the OS's security subsystem.     

Open Source Software in Industry

Many of today's most innovative products and solutions are developed on the basis of free and open source software (FOSS). Most of us can no longer imagine the world of software engineering without open source operating systems, databases, application servers, Web servers, frameworks, and tools. Brands such as Linux, MySQL, Apache, and Eclipse have shaped product and service development. They facilitate competition and open markets as well as innovation to meet new challenges. De facto FOSS standards such as Eclipse and Corba simplify the integration of products, whether they're all from one company or from multiple suppliers. IEEE Software has assembled this theme section to provide a brief yet practical overview of where FOSS is heading.     

设计动态网站的最佳方案:Apache+PHP+MySQL

Apache是目前应用最广的Web服务器;PHP是一种类似ASP的服务器端脚本语言,而MySQL是一个小巧的数据库系统软件,它们特别适用于网站建设.Apache PHP MySQL不仅仅是开源项目,可免费获取,而且它支持Linux、UNIX、OS/2和Windows多个操作系统,可移植性好.因此,这种组合是设计动态网站的最佳解决方案.首先介绍Apache PHP MySQL这3个软件的安装与配置,然后给出了在Windows操作系统平台下选择Apache PHP MySQL组合的网上商店系统的开发原理,系统功能的具体设计与实现.     

Survival analysis on the duration of open source projects

ContextOpen source (FLOSS) project survivability is an important piece of information for many open source stakeholders. Coordinators of open source projects would like to know the chances for the survival of the projects they coordinate. Companies are also interested in knowing how viable a project is in order to either participate or invest in it, and volunteers want to contribute to vivid projects.ObjectiveThe purpose of this article is the application of survival analysis techniques for estimating the future development of a FLOSS project.MethodIn order to apply such approach, duration data regarding FLOSS projects from the FLOSSMETRICS (This work was partially supported by the European Community’s Sixth Framework Program under the Contract FP6-033982) database were collected. Such database contains metadata for thousands of FLOSS projects, derived from various forges. Subsequently, survival analysis methods were employed to predict the survivability of the projects, i.e. their probability of continuation in the future, by examining their duration, combined with other project characteristics such as their application domain and number of committers.ResultsIt was shown how probability of termination or continuation may be calculated and how a prediction model may be built to upraise project future. In addition, the benefit of adding more committers to FLOSS projects was quantified.ConclusionAnalysis results demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed framework for assessing the survival probability of a FLOSS project.     

Free/libre open source software implementation in schools: Evidence from the field and implications for the future

This empirical paper shows how free/libre open source software (FLOSS) contributes to mutual and collaborative learning in an educational environment. Unlike proprietary software, FLOSS allows extensive customisation of software to support the needs of local users better. This also allows users to participate more proactively in the development and implementation process of a FLOSS-based system. In this paper, we observes how implementing FLOSS in an Italian high school challenges the conventional relationship between end users themselves (e.g. teachers and students) and that between users and developers. The findings will shed some light on the social aspects of FLOSS-based computerization – including the role of FLOSS in social and organizational change in educational environments and the ways that the social organization of FLOSS are influenced by social forces and social practices.     

Economics of Linux adoption in developing countries

Software globalization affects build-versus-buy decisions at every level and phase of the software development process. One of the most interesting and controversial issues is the expansion of Linux, an open source operating system, into software development efforts in developing countries. Linux is an interesting example of a globally available software product that has nontrivial choice and productivity implications for software projects in developing countries. We examine the positive and negative effects of adopting Linux and ways to achieve the greatest benefits for developing countries and policy makers. Linux communities and Linux-friendly companies can also help promote diversity and flexible options by working to make proprietary and open source operating systems more interoperable.     

Open source security: opportunity or oxymoron?

As the computer industry focuses on system and network security, a growing number of users are taking a closer look at open source software in order to gauge whether its potential advantages outweigh its possible disadvantages. Although open source security has been around for years, it has never been as widely used as open source products like the Linux OS or Apache Web server have been. John Pescatore, Internet security research director at market-research firm Gartner Inc., said open source security tools now represent 3 to 5 percent of security-software usage but could comprise 10 to 15 percent by 2007. A key factor in this potential growth is the quality of numerous open source security packages. Open source software products include free tools that users can download from the Internet, packages that come with commercial vendor support, and tools bundled with closed source products. The most popular tools include Netfilter and iptables; intrusion-detection systems such as Snort, Snare, and Tripwire; vulnerability scanners like Nessus and Saint; authentication servers such as Kerberos; and firewalls like T.Rex. Some companies are even beginning to use open source security to protect mission-critical applications     

Self-organization of teams for free/libre open source software development

This paper provides empirical evidence about how free/libre open source software development teams self-organize their work, specifically, how tasks are assigned to project team members. Following a case study methodology, we examined developer interaction data from three active and successful FLOSS projects using qualitative research methods, specifically inductive content analysis, to identify the task-assignment mechanisms used by the participants. We found that ‘self-assignment’ was the most common mechanism across three FLOSS projects. This mechanism is consistent with expectations for distributed and largely volunteer teams. We conclude by discussing whether these emergent practices can be usefully transferred to mainstream practice and indicating directions for future research.     

开源许可证检测系统的研究*

针对软件开发过程中许可证冲突的问题,对QualiPSo(quality platform for open source software)项目中提出的开源许可证检测管理过程进行研究分析,以此为支撑,改进现有的许可证检查控制工具OSLC(open source license checker),并与项目成熟度分析和软件开发质量评估检测软件Spago4Q(spagoBI for quality)集成,开发出自动检测开源许可证冲突的原型系统;阐述了将OSLC发布成Web service的类图设计,以及Spago4Q提取器的设计与实现,力求从法律角度提高开源软件的质量,并给基于开源组件的商业软件开发者一定的建议。     

高校Web系统安全防范

Linux+Apache组合是开源环境下很广泛的Web服务器选择。文章从系统配置、第三方工具、应用程序配置和管理等几个方面对Linux环境下Web系统的安全做一些探讨。     

Open source movements as a model for organising

Open source software such as the operating system Linux has in a few years created much attention as an alternative way to develop and distribute software. Open source is to let anyone have access to the source code, so that they can modify it. Open source can be seen as a movement, where communities of highly skilled programmers collectively develop software, often of a quality that outperforms commercial proprietary software. These movements are based on virtual networking on the Internet and the web. They are loosely coupled communities kept together by strong common values related to hacker culture. Work seems to be totally distributed, delegated and loosely coupled. The highly skilled members contribute to the collective effort of free software development. In this paper the open source phenomenon is investigated from different perspectives. It is claimed that the open source movement is one key to the understanding of future forms of organizations, information work and business.     

开源软件开发者的演化研究

开源软件的开发主要依靠开发人员的自我管理和志愿贡献。在软件开发过程中,开发人员的组成、分工、能力等会发生经常性的改变,这些改变都会通过交互行为的变化反映出来。已有研究成果表明开源软件存在核心团队,他们主导项目的开发与实施,但对开发团队随时间而发生的结构变化的研究较少。通过观测软件项目生命周期中开发者总体的变化情况,研究了开发者网络与软件的协同演化机理,以GNU/Linux公共数据集为例,讨论了开源软件开发者数量、自愿度、开发者经验与项目的协同演化现象,并给出了演化的合理解释。     

Effort estimation of FLOSS projects: a study of the Linux kernel

Empirical research on Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) has shown that developers tend to cluster around two main roles: “core” contributors differ from “peripheral” developers in terms of a larger number of responsibilities and a higher productivity pattern. A further, cross-cutting characterization of developers could be achieved by associating developers with “time slots”, and different patterns of activity and effort could be associated to such slots. Such analysis, if replicated, could be used not only to compare different FLOSS communities, and to evaluate their stability and maturity, but also to determine within projects, how the effort is distributed in a given period, and to estimate future needs with respect to key points in the software life-cycle (e.g., major releases). This study analyses the activity patterns within the Linux kernel project, at first focusing on the overall distribution of effort and activity within weeks and days; then, dividing each day into three 8-hour time slots, and focusing on effort and activity around major releases. Such analyses have the objective of evaluating effort, productivity and types of activity globally and around major releases. They enable a comparison of these releases and patterns of effort and activities with traditional software products and processes, and in turn, the identification of company-driven projects (i.e., working mainly during office hours) among FLOSS endeavors. The results of this research show that, overall, the effort within the Linux kernel community is constant (albeit at different levels) throughout the week, signalling the need of updated estimation models, different from those used in traditional 9am–5pm, Monday to Friday commercial companies. It also becomes evident that the activity before a release is vastly different from after a release, and that the changes show an increase in code complexity in specific time slots (notably in the late night hours), which will later require additional maintenance efforts.     

Apache在Red Hat Linux上建立与运行的关键技术

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化学信息学与开源软件

化学信息学研究需要性能强大而又能随时修订的、开放性的软件工具。通过回顾自由软件到开源软件的发展历史,展示开源式程序开发的丰富成就,包括操作系统如Linux、社区如SourceForge和我国的共创软件联盟等,澄清与copyright针锋相对的copyleft式版权概念,介绍并比较多种软件许可证,对开源软件的发展机制进行简要分析,认为开源软件是满足化学信息学要求的最佳选择。