A Labour of Love?: Open Source Movement

In our lecture we discussed the concept of the Open Source Movement. It came to my attention that this impression mainly revolves around the composed movements on the world-wide web. It is clear that the Open Source movement is a dynamic and fundamental part of the software scene in the world at current. Hundreds of thousands of programmes world wide support the Open Source device informally, by participating in the maintenance and updating their software. More formally, “the movement has come to be spearheaded by an organisation named the Open Source Inititative, a nonprofit association based in California that owns the trade mark ‘Open Source’” (http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~l38613dw/readings/OpenSourceOverview.html). The Open Source movement is still very much a new concept, but as discussed in my lecture it holds a great deal of potential for the future development of a variety of software’s.  

The most known example of software originating from the Open Source movement is Linux, the “computer operating system assembled by the model of free and open source software development and distribution” (Wikipedia definition).

The video embedded below shows both a clear definition of what open source movement is and examples that could possibly lead from it.......



The first copyright law was passed on the 10^th April 1710, with the Queen Anne Statue. It passed almost immediately, and the purpose of this was to protect the work of authors. The statue itself was the origin of all modern copyright laws. For the United States of America, the first official copyright legalisation was passed on the 25^th May 1790, much after English laws. A discussion made prominent in our lecture was that, although Benjamin Franklin was rumoured to have started the idea of copyright, it was in fact present in the UK before then.

We may all be aware of what copyright is, but in general our understanding of what copy left is, is quite uneducated. According to a simplified definition on Wikipedia “Copyright is a play on the word copyright to describe the practice of using copyright law to offer the right to distribute copies and modified versions of a work and requiring that the same rights be preserved in modified versions of the work. In other words, copy left is a general method for making a program (or other work) free (libre)”. I thought that it would useful to discuss the development of copy left, over and above referring to the laws revolving around copyright in this direct post. Copyleft type licenses are a novel use of existing copyright law to ensure a work remains freely available.

To conclude, I want to refer back to my initial point about Open Source Technology and highlight how we all directly interact with it on a daily basis. Examples of these relations include; logging into BREO to check our timetables at University or simply logging into sites such as Facebook or Twitter. The interaction we have with Open Source Movement is prominent in our life, and through development of technology, it is only going to increase further. Having a clear understanding of what these various forms of technology are, will furthermore enable our knowledge to expand on different examples in the future. This knowledge reduces how oblivious we also are, to the former background of technology.