Open source software (OSS) began as a marketing campaign for free software.OSS can be defined as computer software for which the human-readable source code is made available under a copyright license (or arrangement such as the public domain) that meets the Open Source Definition. This permits users to use, change, and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified form. It 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 user generated content.Open Source Softwares have following main advantages:
#Users should be treated as co-developers
#Early releases
The first version of the software should be released as early as possible so as to increase one’s chances of finding co-developers early.
#Frequent integration
New code should be integrated as often as possible so as to avoid the overhead of fixing a large number of bugs at the end of the project life cycle. Some open source projects have nightly builds where integration is done automatically on a daily basis.
#Several versions
There should be at least two versions of the software. There should be a buggier version with more features and a more stable version with fewer features. The buggy version (also called the development version) is for users who want the immediate use of the latest features, and are willing to accept the risk of using code that is not yet thoroughly tested. The users can then act as co-developers, reporting bugs and providing bug fixes.
#High modularization
The general structure of the software should be modular allowing for parallel development.
#Dynamic decision making structure
There is a need for a decision making structure, whether formal or informal, that makes strategic decisions depending on changing user requirements and other factors. Cf. Extreme programming.
Most well known OSS products include projects such as Linux, Firefox, Apache, the GNU Compiler Collection, and Perl to mention a few.
Linux kernel comes up with many distributions so we can download it through the distribution’s site such as http://www.fedoraproject.org
PHP: PHP hypertext pre-processor can be downloaded from www.php.net/downloads.php
Apache: One of the most famous HTTP server http://httpd.apache.org/download.cgi
Mozilla Firefox, The most commonly used and best Explorer http://www.getfirefox.com
Pidgin: A multi-protocol instant messenger formerly known as GAIM http://www.pidgin.im/download/
MySQL: one of the leading database management program http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/
