The State of Open Source Software

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner provides an in-depth look at the state of open source software and an overview of the best open source software of the year. 'It's easy to find hundreds of other positive signs of open source domination. If the mere existence of a tar file filled with code from the nether regions of a beeping device that's buried deep inside someone's pocket is all you need to feel warm and fuzzy about "open source," you might conclude that open source development is the most dominant form in the increasingly dominant platform of the future,' Wayner writes. 'But anyone who digs a bit deeper will find it's not so simple. Although the open source label is more and more ubiquitous, society is still a long way from Richard Stallman's vision of a world where anyone could reprogram anything at any time. Patents, copyrights, and corporate intrigue are bigger issues than ever for the community, and more and more people are finding that the words "open source" are no guarantee of the freedom to tinker and improve. Some cynics even suggest that the bright, open future is receding as Linux and other open source tools grow more dominant.' Included in the writeup are the best open source applications, best open source desktop and mobile offerings, best open source development tools, and best open source software for datacenters and the cloud."

Re:Fifty-one pages

[UnknownSoldier]

Agreed. Here's all the one page summary ...
[ not karma whoring since I've been maxed for _years_ ... ]

= Applications =
* Apache Lucene and Solr
* Drupal
* Openbravo ERP
* Pentaho BI Suite
* SugarCRM
* WordPress

= Desktop and mobile =
* 7-Zip
* Google Android
* CamStudio
* Google Chrome
* LibreOffice
* Oracle VM VirtualBox
* PDFCreator
* Pidgin
* PortableApps.com
* TrueCrypt
* VLC

= Application Development =
* CakePHP
* CoffeeScript
* Git
* Apache Hadoop
* Hudson and Jenkins
* jQuery Mobile and Sencha Touch
* MongoDB
* Node.js
* Web2py

= Data Center & Cloud =
* Eucalyptus and OpenStack
* Gluster
* Talend Open Studio
* Vyatta
* Xen
* WSO2

--
Can I get my 10 mins back, please.

Re:FTA:

[wrook]

No offence, but before you start criticising, it would help if you understood the issue. RMS uses the words "open source" himself. I have emails from him to prove it. What is at issue is that there is a distinction between "open source" and "free software". Originally ESR started using the term "open source" as a replacement for "free software". He (probably correctly) felt that the word "free" was confusing. However, at the same time he created a definition of "open source" that was different from "free software" while insisting that they were the same. The FSF is concerned with the freedom of all subsequent users to use the software for any purpose, modify it for their needs and to redistribute their modifications. "Open source" discusses the development practice of allowing other developers to view and modify the source code. There is no implication that all subsequent users will be able to modify the code.

An equivalent term would have been fine at the time. The problem was that ESR ignored the only thing that the FSF was interested in. At the same time, he championed many useful and pragmatic practices that have value in their own right. Thus one movement became two.

It is quite reasonable to say that the practice of producing open source software is becoming more and more mainstream, but that the issues of software freedom have not taken hold to the same extent. I doubt there would be many people who would disagree with that statement or find it objectionable. Open source development practices are a definite step forward. But for those interested in software freedom, there is still a long way to go. In some ways the open source movement has taken up a lot of the technical issues that the free software movement used to deal with. Personally, I think it is more important for free software advocates to concentrate on social rather than technical issues (and, in fact, I think that is being done).