Miscellaneous > The Lounge

Economics of open source

(1/2) > >>

PeterMoore:
hi all.  
i need a bit of help.  i have some work for uni on open source.  if the topic had been anything but 'Economics of open source' i would be fine.  But i have been assigned this one, and i was wondering if any of u kind people would help me out.  could u give me some information on this topic or point  me in the direction of some.  
Thanks very much
Peter

Refalm:
Let me explain a bit about the economics of Open Source.

The Open Source is actually a kind of modification of the Free Software Foundation. Someone will explain the differences later.

The Free Software foundation encourages people to freely make avaible the source code of a program, so that people can study, modify or compile it without anyone telling them that it's not allowed.

Linux is GPL licenced. GPL comes from the Free Software Foundation, that gave out a license that the author of a program must always include a source code. The user of a program can use source code, as long as it's for a program that is GPL licensed.

OK, maybe some other member of this forum can explain you how Open Source and Free software can be benefisial to a company like Apple, Sun or Red Hat. Or I will in a when I have some spare time left  ;) . (please ignore the spellings errors, English is my second language).

PeterMoore:
thanks very much

flap:
stfw.

http://www.opensource.org/advocacy has some economic arguments.

For the differences between "Open Source" and Free Software, see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html

zoolooo:
The Apple Safari browser could be a useful case.

It's core is open source - which they improved and gave back.  Some of their code they kept.

see

promote-opensource.org

zooloo

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page