NYTimes: Code Name: Mainstream (Can Open Source Bridge the Software Gap?)

“‘Open source software’ seems a
radical approach indeed. The
term stands for both an
iconoclastic philosophy and a
software development model:
software is distributed free and
its ‘source code,’ or underlying
instructions, are published
openly so that other
programmers can study, share
and modify the author’s work.”

But open source, once viewed as an ideological movement at the fringes of
computing, is moving into the mainstream — largely because the spread of
the Internet and personal computers make it easy for programmers to
collaborate in far-flung, voluntary teams.

“The open-source model
represents a sharp break with the
practices of the commercial
software business, which
considers source code a
company’s private property —
usually guarded jealously and
shared only rarely, under strict licensing terms.”

“But open source, once viewed as an ideological movement at the fringes of
computing, is moving into the mainstream — largely because the spread of
the Internet and personal computers make it easy for programmers to
collaborate in far-flung, voluntary teams.”

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