Ⅰ. An Introduction to Open Source

    When man came into being, they began to cooperate with their companions. With the help of each other, we human beings created the modern world. The history of the development of modern technology is the history of human collaboration. Same to the human history, in computer science field, the collaboration still exists. As we have mentioned above, Open Source is a kind of collaboration that many computer elites gathered together to develop software which is needed by the modern world.

    Today, many companies have taken part in the trend of Open Source, such as IBM, Nokia, Adobe and so on. The proposal of Open Source was first brought forward by some leaders in a Free Software association. And it soon came into a great trend sweeping over the computer science field. Everyone can be a member of Open Source technology because generally the source code of Open Source software is published. One can download the code on their websites.

     Generally, Open Source software is free. There’s usually no ad in the software because the Open Source software is developed for use, not for commercial purpose. And always, the Open Source software is safe because many people are finding bugs and fixing them for its users. Many people say that free to all is the purpose of Open Source, but in many visions, the purpose of Open Source is advancing the development of computer science.

    Open Source has great opportunities and challenges, and with the effort of the computer elites, its future will be extraordinary.

Ⅱ. Typical Open Source Software

    Linux (OS): The statement that Linux can be the spokesman of Open Source is true. Linux is known all over the world. Linux is an excellent Unix-based platform, which provides us with a choice besides Microsoft Windows. And in the same time, it has many features that Windows doesn’t have, such as the strong capability in web technology.

    With the development of Linux series, many different platforms based on Linux were published in the past few years, such as Red Hat, Red Flag, Fedora, SuSE, Ubuntu, Debian, etc. Statistics shows that there’re more than 300 kinds of Linux-based platforms, and they’re widely used in many fields.

    The price of Microsoft Vista Ultimate is 339.99$, and compared with Vista, Linux is cheap, even most Linux-based platforms are free. All the PC vendors provide their client choices between Windows and Linux (maybe other platforms). There’re many websites for Linux users exchange the experience. A green Linuxer can easily get tutorials on the websites.

    Linux comes into being, a great transform is breeding.

    OpenOffice and its partners (Office Work): When our eyesight comes to office software, we’ll first see Microsoft Office. But when we need to cut down our cost, and Microsoft Office is too expensive (the standard version of Microsoft Office 2007 is priced at 399.95$), what should we do?

    Open Source give us many cheap or free choices now. Using OpenOffice, you can not only enjoy the functions that Microsoft Office has, and in addition to the basic need of office work, Open Office offers many new features that can carry through special jobs.

    As we mentioned above, one of the advantages of Open Source software is that they’re free. With less cost, people can accomplish their office work in a cheap way.

    The same to OpenOffice, there can be other Open Source office software that can replace Microsoft Office, such as IBM Lotus Symphony, StarOffice, KOffice, AbiWord, etc.

    With the rapid advance of cloud computing, Google is launching its new project that named Writely. Users can edit and save their documents on a web page and it’s easy to encrypt and easy to share. In a word, Writely is easy to get and easy to use. And the most important thing is, it’s Open Source. In the near future, more wonders are waiting for Open Source.

    Our life is changing, everything come to be easy with the effort of Open Source.

    Java (Programming): Java can be a loud name. When Java first came into being in 1995,it soon became very popular among the programmers. It bases on C/C++, but it’s easier, stronger and safer than them.

    In the Open Source fields, Java can be extremely famous. Java program is constituted by classes, even JDK (Java Development Kit) are formed by many small classes, in other words, Java is purely Open Source.

    Open Source also provide Java developers with a strong IDE (Integrated Development Environment) named eclipse. The famous IDE’s source code is published on its website Eclipse.org. And many Open Source projects strengthened the function of Java, such as Spring, Struts, Hibernate, etc.

    Flex (Web Programming): Programming by flex is a fresh saying. Flex is based on ActionScript which is embedded in Flash. It’s new technology developing software on web and desktop. Open Source became the choice of Flex in 2007 when Adobe announced that the source code of Flex SDK (Software Development Kit) was published. And from then on, Flex came to its rapid development way. It’s commonly believed it will be the leader of Web2 Era.

    One of the futures of web development is believed to be RIA (Rich Internet Applications). This new technology can deploy applications on web pages, which will greatly advance the development of web technology.

    Although Flex is new, with the effort of the Flex developers, it can go further. Open Source will greatly change the patterns of the computer science field.

    MySQL (Database): Database development is one of the main fields of computer science. There are many database development tools, but many of them are paid (the price of Oracle 9i Standard is about 5000$). Many websites such as bbs are non-profit, so the site owners need a balance between the high price and the growth of their websites. So an Open Source project came to their eyes, it’s called MySQL.

    MySQL was originally developed by MySQLAB, and it’s bought by Sun in 2008. It’s widely used in small and medium-sized websites, providing free database services. Although it’s free, its functions are strong and it’s easy to measure.

    When a website is build, database system is very important. It manages all the data that the server stores, and by using query statement, the server can display the appropriate data on user’s screen. Suppose that MySQL were not come into being, it meant that the web would not become as colorful as we have today.

    Open Source bring all of us to a colorful world of web, and it brings us more and more fresh experience that we never thought about before.  

    The list above is not comprehensive, such as PHP, Ajax and so on are not included. Open Source is an extensive field, it extends to all the fields of computer science.

Ⅲ. Thinking in Open Source

    With the Open Source introductions above, some conclusions can be summarized. Above all, Open Source is a nature action to advance our development of technology because man are born to be coordinate. At the same time, the work by the developers and the developer themselves are noble, they lead the trend to truth.

Open Source changed the concept of software development. In the old days, many programmers developed software only to make money. Open Source software developers lead their golden-colleagues to the truth of software. It is, software is mainly developed for use instead of making money. With an appropriate attitude, Open Source software (and other commercial software) will be better and better.

Open Source can reduce cost, so it can help users make full use of their money. With the development of Open Source, great amount of money can be saved. It means that more and more projects (no matter in what field) will be established by the extra money. It will advance the steps of the development of our human world.

Open Source tells us, the development team which is formed by developer around the world can be extremely powerful. It’s stronger than any company. The power of masses is enormous. It’s a truth that cannot be overthrow. Open Source reflected the strength of human themselves. To advance the computer science, the most important link is the common programmers, developers, etc.

From the history of the development of human beings and computer science, we can see that collaboration is the most powerful key to establishing great achievements and selfless is needed by the work for our human world.