a bit on Open-Source

Since the late nineties i've been using Open-Source Software (O.S.S.) , mostly as a means to study Unix/Linux later as a means to have a desktop OS which did not cost me a load of money.

From the start there has been this inherent promise O.S.S. would deliver more secure software. This basically because of three reasons, it is Open, it is Open Source and it is software. Not to degrade on the inherent promise but to point at he volunteer nature behind this promise.

It must be noted the people writing open-source software are often people who do have quite a bit of experience and are not short on passion. 

Basically it is important to note there's a two-fold here, there is the software on the one hand and the Open Model on the other. Folded into a single concept widely known as Open-Source or Open-Source Software.

If you're about as old as me or older you remember the Open Consortium as the failed attempt of unifying many flavors of Unix. To me it was a proof ego's trump any good model, the truth is much more complicated.

The battles went down in history as indirectly destroying most of an industry, creating a gaping opportunity for Microsoft to grown into a market previously closed to non-Unix companies, the workstation and server market.

Workstations as a concept have now been mostly forgotten, Servers on the other hand we've all been in contact with.

Despite being overrun with closed-source the legacy of Open Software continued and found a new breath when Linus Torvalds decided to release the Linux kernel as an open-source project.

This was the missing piece in a puzzle waiting to complete itself. Other efforts such as Minix were quickly overshadowed and quickly open-source became Linux and vice-versa. To this day uninformed people refer to Linux while speaking of open-source. It cannot be stressed enough there are notable differences.

An equally important distinction to make is that open-source software does not mean Free Software, there is also Free Software Foundation of which many applications are integrated into a Linux distribution or as part of an open-source project.

A notable example of why open-source software is not the same as free software is for example CentOS which is based on the sources published by RedHat Software. CentOS is compiled from this source, binaries which are not made public by RedHat. If one desires to use these binaries one is required to purchase the product instead of downloading the compiled binaries.

Any doubts on how to make money with open-source should hereby be aleviated :-) RedHat has proven to be a very healthy company. As do other companies releasing both source and binaries but offering commercial support only.