Social network analysis of open source software: A review and categorisation

The Move to the Middle: Convergence of the Open-Source and Proprietary Software Industries

Open Source vs. Proprietary Software: Competition and Compatibility

Open source software is becoming increasingly prominent, and the economic structure of open-source development is changing. In recent years, firms motivated by revenues from software services markets have become the primary contributors to open-source development. In this paper we study the role of services in open source software development and explore the choice between open source and proprietary software. Specifically, our economic model jointly analyzes the investment and pricing decisions of the originators of software and of subsequent open-source contributors. We find that if a contributor is efficient in software development, the originator should adopt an open-source strategy, allowing the contributor to offer higher total quality and capture the higher end of the market while the originator focuses on providing software services to lower end consumers. Conversely, if the contributor is not efficient in development, the originator should adopt a proprietary software development strategy, gaining revenue from software sales and squeezing the contributor out of the services market. In certain cases an increase in originator development efficiency can result in increased contributor profits. Finally, we find that, somewhat counterintuitively, an increase in contributor development efficiency can reduce overall social welfare.

Abstract. Landslides exhibit themselves in different mass movement processes and are considered among the most complex natural hazards occurring on the earth surface. Making landslide database available online via WWW (World Wide Web) promotes the spreading and reaching out of the landslide information to all the stakeholders. The aim of this research is to present a comprehensive database for generating landslide hazard scenario with the help of available historic records of landslides and geo-environmental factors and make them available over the Web using geospatial Free & Open Source Software (FOSS). FOSS reduces the cost of the project drastically as proprietary software's are very costly. Landslide data generated for the period 1982 to 2009 were compiled along the national highway road corridor in Indian Himalayas. All the geo-environmental datasets along with the landslide susceptibility map were served through WEBGIS client interface. Open source University of Minnesota (UMN) mapserver was used as GIS server software for developing web enabled landslide geospatial database. PHP/Mapscript server-side application serve as a front-end application and PostgreSQL with PostGIS extension serve as a backend application for the web enabled landslide spatio-temporal databases. This dynamic virtual visualization process through a web platform brings an insight into the understanding of the landslides and the resulting damage closer to the affected people and user community. The landslide susceptibility dataset is also made available as an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Web Feature Service (WFS) which can be accessed through any OGC compliant open source or proprietary GIS Software.

In this paper, we study oligopolistic competition between closed and open source softwares. By intersecting existing economic contributions on open source, we propose a two stage game with perfect information and product di¤eretiation in which producers firstly set softwares quality, then they determine prices (constrained at zero for open source programs). In doing this, we explicitly model lock-in e¤ects, network externality components of software quality as well as knowledge accumulation in software use and implementation. With respect to a monopolistic benchmark case, we argue that in duopoly a pro- prietary sofware producer facing an open source software will reduce its selling price whether: (i) its network of users is larger than open sources one and its consumers are largely experienced on its program, (ii) it has a small network of un-skilled consumers. In opposition, after open source softwares emergence, proprietary software price does augment if proprietary software users form a large, but poorly skilled network. Fur- thermore, we show that, in all above cases, proprietary software quality increases because of the existence of a open source alternative to a previouisly monopolistic program. Finally, by modeling knowledge accumulation processes through di¤erence equations, we show that the ratio between closed and open source programs opportunity costs of software learning and deployment plays a crucial role in shaping market outcomes. Until an open source software remains too complex and technical for unskilled or time-scarse users, a shared market solution in which both softwares are adopted is predicted. In contrast, if opportunity costs in learning and understanding open source programs are remarkably low, or at least equal to opportunity costs of a closed source software, then a open source dominance outcome (i.e. all software are open ones) phases out.

Using open source E&P software for the first time or, in particular, becoming a developer has always meant that we have to put in an enormous effort in learning the ins and outs of the desired open source package. This requirement has, over the years, limited the number of potential users of open source software or has scared off new users. Addressing the reasons behind the big effort required to learn an open source E&P software will be the subject of this panel discussion.

The number and impact of open source projects is increasing. We examine the impact of competition from open source software (OSS) on proprietary software providers by analyzing three cases: (i) proprietary software as a monopoly, (ii) mixed duopoly competition between proprietary software provider and OSS, and (i) duopoly competition between two proprietary software providers. We use an analytical model to capture two important features of OSS: (i) its zero licensing price and (ii) its lower usability in comparison with proprietary software. Prior studies have shown that competition from OSS causes the proprietary software provider to produce software that is both lower quality and lower priced than software offered by a monopolist. In contrast, our paper shows that these results hold under certain conditions but are not always true. We find that competition from OSS can induce the proprietary software provider to increase its software quality and price relative to those of the monopolist when the proprietary software provider's cost of enhancing software quality is moderate. Surprisingly, we also find that competition from OSS can lead to a reduction in social welfare. Whereas prior research has shown this result in the context of network effects, we show that this can occur in the absence of network effects and offer a novel explanation.

A lot misinformation and mystery surrounds the topic of Open Source software. The conceptual misunderstanding of software is fostered, in some respects, by a lack of understanding within the professional ranks of the computer field. There are many different views of Open Source software today, based upon ones perspective. After about 20 years of evolution, the position of Open Source in our economy still has not coalesced. Few seems to understand whether Open Source is free software for running a computer (i.e., Linux) or just a way to obtain some software products without giving Microsoft ones money. “There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world and that is an idea whose time has come” - Victor Hugo any view Open Source (OS) software as just a free alternative to proprietary software. The term does not mean that there is no cost associated with its procurement, although some vendors do provide free versions. The word “free” usually means the freedom to copy, modify, or distribute the software. One must be very careful when applying this broad, general meaning to Open Source software. There are many different Open Source licenses in use and it is imperative that users acquaint themselves with the legal ramifications of dealing with intellectual property rights. ` Open Source software should be viewed as a viable alternative in many software selection processes. Recently, the news has portrayed the report of India's Kerala state moving to Linux and OpenOffice for its 2,724 high schools. Likewise, OpenOffice is replacing Microsoft Office in many schools districts around the US. With tight school budgets, school superintendents are realizing significant cost savings by using the OpenOffice products for their campuses. Products such as OpenOffice may not be 100% compatible with their current proprietary counterpart, but for many applications, compatibility is not the issue. The price and the software license management of proprietary packages may be overwhelming.

Open-source software abbreviated as OSS is computer software that is available with source code and is provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, and improve the software. For the commercial software the source code and certain other rights are normally reserved for copyright holders,i.e. the company who developes the software. A group of people in a collaborative manner often developes the Open source software, not under the roof of a large organization. This strategy makes open source software cheap, reliable and modifiable if needed. In this context we shall discuss mainly the features of Open Source Software, differences of open source and free software and open source software movement in Indian perspective.

Over the past decade, numerous computer-assisted retrosynthesis reaction prediction methods have been reported in the chemical literature, several of which are also shared as open-source code. Reports of integrating these modern open-source retrosynthetic prediction techniques into the chemical education classroom, however, is largely absent. This article describes our efforts to teach a computer-assisted retrosynthesis workshop series using open-source reaction prediction software and methods. In addition to three workshops on selected open-source reaction prediction methods, the series included workshops on Python programming and introductory cheminformatics using the RDKit cheminformatics toolkit. A pre and post survey was distributed to better understand participant familiarity and workshop outcomes. Participants indicated that they had minimal experience with cheminformatics, and open-source retrosynthesis software, however after the workshop series they indicated increased familiarity, interest, and desire to pursue additional training related to open-source retrosynthesis software and methods. We conclude this article with our experiences and ideas for future improvements. The workshop materials and code are available with an open source license, and educators are encouraged to adapt and improve the lessons (https://github.com/UA-Libraries-Research-Data-Services/retrosynthesis).

Measuring open source software success

Despite the growing success of the Open Source movement, most of the general public continues to feel that Open Source software is inaccessible to them. This paper discusses five fundamental problems with the current Open Source software development trend, explores why these issues are holding the movement back, and offers solutions that might help overcome these problems. The lack of focus on user interface design causes users to prefer proprietary software’s more intuitive interface. Open Source software tends to lack the complete and accessible documentation that retains users. Developers focus on features in their software, rather than ensuring that they have a solid core. Open Source programmers also tend to program with themselves as an intended audience, rather than the general public. Lastly, there is a widely known stubbornness by Open Source programmers in refusing to learn from what lessons proprietary software has to offer. If Open Source software wishes to become widely used and embraced by the general public, all five of these issues will have to be overcome.

Open source software (OSS) is computer software that has its underlying source code made available under a licence. This can allow developers and users to adapt and improve it (Raymond, 2001). Computer software can be broadly split into two development models: • Proprietary, or closed software, owned by a company or individual. Copies of the binary are made public; the source code is not usually made public. • Open-source software (OSS), where the source code is released with the binary. Users and developers can be licenced to use and modify the code, and to distribute any improvements they make. Both OSS and proprietary approaches allow companies to make a profit. Companies developing proprietary software make money by developing software and then selling licences to use the software. For example, Microsoft receives a payment for every copy of Windows sold with a personal computer. OSS companies make their money by providing services, such as advising clients on the GPL licence. The licencee can either charge a fee for this service or work free of charge. In practice, software companies often develop both types of software. OSS is developed by an ongoing, iterative process where people share the ideas expressed in the source code. The aim is that a large community of developers and users can contribute to the development of the code, check it for errors and bugs, and make the improved version available to others. Project management software is used to allow developers to keep track of the various versions. There are two main types of open-source licences (although there are many variants and subtypes developed by other companies): • Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) Licence: This permits a licencee to “close” a version (by withholding the most recent modifications to the source code) and sell it as a proprietary product; • GNU General Public Licence (GNU, GPL, or GPL): Under this licence, licencees may not “close” versions. The licencee may modify, copy, and redistribute any derivative version, under the same GPL licence. The licencee can either charge a fee for this service or work free of charge. Free software first evolved during the 1970s but in the 1990s forked into two movements, namely free software and open source (Berry, 2004). Richard Stallman, an American software developer who believes that sharing source code and ideas is fundamental to freedom of speech, developed a free version of the widely used Unix operating system. The resulting GNU program was released under a specially created General Public Licence (GNU, GPL). This was designed to ensure that the source code would remain openly available to all. It was not intended to prevent commercial usage or distribution (Stallman, 2002). This approach was christened free software. In this context, free meant that anyone could modify the software. However, the term “free” was often misunderstood to mean no cost. Hence, during the 1990s, Eric Raymond and others proposed that open-source software was coined as a less contentious and more business-friendly term. This has become widely accepted within the software and business communities; however there are still arguments about the most appropriate term to use (Moody, 2002). The OSMs are usually organised into a network of individuals who work collaboratively on the Internet, developing major software projects that sometimes rival commercial software but are always committed to the production of quality alternatives to those produced by commercial companies (Raymond, 2001; Williams, 2002). Groups and individuals develop software to meet their own and others’ needs in a highly decentralised way, likened to a Bazaar (Raymond, 2001). These groups often make substantive value claims to support their projects and foster an ethic of community, collaboration, deliberation, and intellectual freedom. In addition, it is argued by Lessig (1999) that the FLOSS community can offer an inspiration in their commitment to transparency in their products and their ability to open up governmental regulation and control through free/libre and open source code.

This issue continues the growing emphasis on contributions from Asia, with only one paper from Africa. In the first paper, ‘Website satisfaction dimensions: Factors between satisfaction and dissatisfaction’, Chorng-Shyong Ong and Shu-Chen Chang, of the National Taiwan University, report on a study to assess the influence of perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment on users’ experience of satisfaction or dissatisfaction when using websites. The second paper also focuses on the use of online services. In ‘User acceptance of Internet banking in Indonesia: Initial trust formation’, Aries Susanto, Hwansoo Lee and Hangjung Zo, of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), and Andrew P. Ciganek, of the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater, report on a large-scale survey of prospective Internet banking service customers in Indonesia which aimed to assess the impact of trust, perceived security, and perceived privacy on consumers’ initial trust of Internet banking. The contribution to this issue from Africa, ‘HIV/ AIDS-related information needs of urban and rural residents of northwest Ethiopia: alerting the rural populace and meeting the progressive needs of the urban populace’, by Mesfin Awoke Bekalu and Steven Eggermont of the University of Leuven, reports on a study designed to assess the impacts of urbanity vs. rurality on HIV/AIDS-related information needs in northwest Ethiopia. The findings indicated that urban residents were more concerned about, and had greater information needs on HIV/ AIDS, than the rural populace. The two groups also had significantly different preferences for specific types of HIV/AIDS-related information. We return to Asia with the next paper, ‘Achieving horizontal integration of municipal e-government in China: assessment of managerial mechanisms’, by Bo Fan of Shanghai Jiaotong University. This reports on a study which aimed to analyze managerial determinants, identify key stakeholders, and redesign managerial mechanisms for the task of horizontal integration of Chinese municipal e-government. Data were collected from a nationwide survey administered in selected municipal cities in China. The research identified multiple managerial factors necessary for horizontal integration in e-government; these were: experience in general management, reforming authority, experience in projects, and legal regulation. The final paper in this issue again deals with users’ attitudes to an aspect of information technology. In ‘Acceptance of open source software amongst Thai users: an integrated model approach’, Veera Bhatiasevi of Mahidol University International College, and Donyaprueth Krairit of the Asian Institute of Technology, report on a survey of 1,005 open source software users in Thailand which led to the development of a comprehensive model that integrates individual, social, and software characteristics to measure the acceptance of open source software. The results illustrate that perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, intention to use, output quality, compatibility, software functionality, and software maintainability have a positive relationship with open source software acceptance. Also in this issue, Archie Dick’s column on Education for librarianship and information studies: fit for purpose?, while Msafiri tries to ‘Catch the Wind’. A Commentary by Ian M. Johnson considers the question of ‘Development goals after 2015 – the role of information, books and libraries’, while we also include a brief summary of a recent SAGE report, ‘Library Value in the Developing World’, by Nell McCreadie, Group Marketing Manager, SAGE Publications Ltd. The full report is available free of charge at http://www.sagepublications.com/libraries/dw, and will also be published in IFLA Journal, Vol. 39, no. 4 (December 2013).

Computer Algebra Systems A computer algebra system (CAS) is a computer program designed to manipulate mathematical expressions in symbolic rather than numeric form, a task carried out routinely by theoretical scientists. There are a number of specialist programs, and some general purpose systems applicable to a wide range of problems, and it is the latter which we consider here. It is perhaps remarkable that two of the very oldest, Reduce and Maxima , which originated in the 1960s are still available as open source software. Subsequently various proprietary packages appeared. Perhaps the best known are Maple and Mathematica , which originated in the 1980s. Two more recent entries this century are Sage and SymPy . Both are open source projects. Besides symbolic manipulation, they all offer the ability to do numerics and create graphical output. Also, just like Python, they consist of a relatively small core and an extensive set of libraries which can be added as needed for specialist tasks. So which of these four open source systems should one use? The most striking feature about SymPy is that it is written entirely in Python, and indeed is just an add-on module. It is small, and works in any Python system. It interfaces well to NumPy for numerics and to Matplotlib for graphics. The standard terminal mode has unsophisticated output, but naturally it can be used within the Jupyter notebook, and there it offers perhaps the best formatting currently available of complicated symbolic output. In comparison with the others it is incredibly slow, and many of the features are still in beta form, needing further development. I recommend it unreservedly for (a) learning about CASs and (b) for lightweight tasks. But what of the other open source alternatives? Since 2008 Reduce has been available as open source software. The users' manual is a mere 1006 pages, but the core language is covered in the first 184 pages. It was developed at a time when fancy output displays did not exist, and this shows in terminal mode, which interfaces well with advanced editors such as emacs . However, recent incarnations offer an enhanced terminal mode which, if LATEX is available, offers fancy output up to the standard of the opposition.