External links
Hereafter a limited selection of well-know information sources regarding free and open source software is provided. As many FOSS issues are subject to intensive and wide debate, the selection includes information sources that are firmly in favor of open source as well as sources that provide critical analyses.
Although the selected entries have been kept to a small number, they do provide the starting point to a wealth of other information sources.
Main references concerning FOSS
The purpose of this list is to serve as a useful and balanced starting point for further investigation of the FOSS phenomenon. Browsing through them, one can find many additional links to more papers, examples and websites.
All text hereafter in double quotes (".") has been extracted from the respective websites.
http://www.fsf.org/The Free Software Foundation, the principal organisational sponsor of the GNU Project and architect of the GPL or 'copyleft' licenses. Initiated by Richard Stallman, one of the main figures in the FOSS arena, FSF (established in 1985) represents perhaps the first attempt to give a precise meaning and definition to 'free software'. The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSF Europe) was founded in 2001 as the sister organisation of FSF, and deals with FOSS in Europe.
Accessible at: http://fsfe.org/
http://www.opensource.org/The OpenSource Initiative (OSI), founded in February 1998, is another major FOSS reference point. Co-started by Eric Raymond (author of the highly influential paper 'The Cathedral and the Bazaar'), it represents a slight ideological shift in the FOSS community. OSI, according to its creators, attempts to promote FOSS on more pragmatic, business-case grounds than the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The result is OpenSource Definition (OSD) and a list of OSI-certified licenses, which conform to it.
The OSI provides also an useful definition of open source: http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/ict/files/2006-11-20-flossimpact_en.pdf: "This study provides a single-point integrative analysis of the vast amount of data available on the technical and economic impact of the intersection of FLOSS, ICT industries and the economy at large".
http://www.osor.eu/ This is the open source observatory and repository supported by European Commission. It includes a section on European Union Public Licence (EUPL): http://www.osor.eu/eupl
http://www.flossproject.org/report/FLOSS_Final4.pdf. The Free/Libre and Open Source Software: Survey and Study (FLOSS) published in June 2002 by the international institute of infonomics in the Netherlands, and funded by the European Commission (DG Information Society). An extensive study which thoroughly examines the FOSS phenomenon in an attempt to "remedy the lack of information on the subject". One of the very few FOSS studies which also contains empirical evidence.
http://opensource.mit.edu/. An online research community established in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), with the purpose to "further the understanding of open source and its implications outside the realm of software development". A useful point of reference as it contains a very wide list of relevant publications here: http://opensource.mit.edu/online_papers.php.
http://oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/toc.html The online version of the book 'Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution' is freely available from oreilly.com. Although relatively old (first published in January 1999), it is still useful as an introduction to FOSS and an interesting read in general, as it includes writings by main figures in the field. Among others: Linus Torvalds (creator of the Linux kernel), Richard Stallman (FSF), Eric Raymond (OSI), Tim O'Reilly (publisher, O'Reilly Inc.).
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/. A link to Eric Raymond's 'The Cathedral and the Bazaar' - a famous and influential essay on FOSS. Also contains two other interesting papers: 'The Magic Cauldron' (focusing on the economics of software production and FOSS development in particular) and 'Homesteading the Noosphere' (examining the social dynamics behind FOSS). Raymond is a key figure within the FOSS arena, and co-founder of the OpenSource initiative.
http://sourceforge.net/ Sourceforge is probably today the largest repository of open source software. As of February, 2009, more than 230,000 software projects have been registered to use Sourceforge services by more than 2 million registered users.
http://www.apache.org/ The Apache Software Foundation has a quite different approach than Sourceforge, even if with some similarities. According to their statement "The Apache Software Foundation provides support for the Apache community of open-source software projects. The Apache projects are characterized by a collaborative, consensus based development process, an open and pragmatic software license, and a desire to create high quality software that leads the way in its field." Apache HTTP Server is very well known since it is by far the most used web server in the world (according to data from Netcraft - July 2009)
This page is maintained by: Sabine Posdziech