OSI Open Source Definition
For software developers, Linux provides a platform that lets them change the operating system as
they like and get a wide range of help creating the applications they need. One of the watchdogs of
the open source movement is the Open Source Initiative (www.opensource.org). This is how the
OSI Web site describes open source software:
The basic idea behind open source is very simple: When programmers can read, redistribute,
and modify the source code for a piece of software, the software evolves. People
improve it, people adapt it, people fix bugs. And this can happen at a speed that, if one
is used to the slow pace of conventional software development, seems astonishing.
We in the open source community have learned that this rapid evolutionary process produces
better software than the traditional closed model, in which only a very few programmers
can see the source and everybody else must blindly use an opaque block of bits.
While the primary goal of open source software is to make source code available, other goals are
also defined by OSI in its Open Source Definition. Most of the following rules for acceptable open
source licenses are to protect the freedom and integrity of the open source code:
Free distribution??”An open source license can??™t require a fee from anyone who resells
the software.
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