Open Source: What does it mean?

If I were to tell you that, for anything you need to do, there’s probably a free, adware-free, spyware-free, malware-free, virus-free program out there to do it, you’d probably tell me I was a nut. You’d think it insane to say that there are professional grade cell phones out there that you can modify to your own ends. You might even think it crazy that a relatively popular author releases his books free of charge on his website. What do all of these true phenomena have in common? They’re all examples of the open source philosophy.
So what is open source? Strictly speaking, source means source code, which is the actual text that a programmer writes to create a working program. Open or closed is defined by whether or not the source code is made available to everyone, or is considered proprietary, controlled information. For example, Windows XP is an operating system whose source is closed. This is because Microsoft wants your money for their product of an operating system. However, Ubuntu linux (ubuntu.com), an open source, windows-like form of linux, is freely available. If you don’t believe me, go to http://ubuntu.mirror.frontiernet.net/ubuntu/dists/hardy/main/source/. The next step for any piece of source code is to be compiled into language that the computer can understand. This means that by providing open source, anyone that has a compiler (also freely available) can have the program for free. Most people have decided to cut out the middle man and just offer the compiled programs for free on their website. However, open source means that you can modify the source any way that you like, and thus bend it to your will. For more on this, see http://www.sourceforge.net/.
A further definition of open source that has developed of late is that of open source hardware. A lot of hardware used to be open source (without even knowing it) due to the fact that schematics used to be included with electronic equipment. Even today, if you go down to Radio Shack, amid the confused stares of the sales staff, you can find amplifiers that have schematics in the box. Of course, just as with software, you need to learn how to read and modify what you’re looking at, but at least you have somewhere to begin. More and more, there is also a DIY movement online that is looking at creating its own open source hardware, and training people to work with it.
Now, to Mr. Cory Doctorow (craphound.com). Mr. Doctorow is an engaging Sci-Fi author with a few books and many short stories to his name. Personally, I recommend Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town. If you want to read it, however, you don’t even have to go to your local library. Instead, you can go to http://craphound.com/someone/download.php and get it for free.
Open source as a philosophy is changing the world, and you, too can be a beneficiary of the large numbers of people who just want to create. People who subscribe to the words of Woody Guthrie, “Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.”