Background II: The Open Source Movement
While the Free Software movement generally consists of freelance projects, or labors of love
,the Open Source movement is widely seen as a pragmatic approach to software development. Many open source projects, such as OpenOffice are partnerships with software companies, which provide money and personnel to support the projects. Tiemann (2006) defines open source as a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.
The idea behind open source is that the ability of any user to see program code means that any user can report bugs and suggest changes, leading to the improved quality and reliability implied by Tiemann's definition. The Open Source Initiative contains a more comprehensive ten-point definition of open source software that sets ground rules on how participants may use the software.
Eric Raymond (2009) considered one of the founding fathers of open source, described the value of distributed peer review in his book, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, an online work that changed repeatedly since its inception. In his book, Raymond contrasts the analogy of a cathedral, carefully and quietly constructed, with the analogy of a bazaar, where differing agendas compete and the loudest voice is often triumphant. Raymond (2009) writes, "I believed that the most important software...needed to be built like cathedrals, carefully crafted by individual wizards or small bands of mages working in splendid isolation, with no beta to be released before its time." Raymond's example of the contrasting bazaar is the Linux community, which has grown immensely since the original Linux kernel was developed by Linus Torvalds; there are now dozens of different Linux distributions for different computers and needs.
Raymond (2009) later outlines some preconditions for effective bazaar mode
work:
When you start community-building, what you need to be able to present is a plausible promise. Your program doesn't have to work particularly well. It can be crude, buggy, incomplete, and poorly documented. What it must not fail to do is (a) run, and (b) convince potential co-developers that it can be evolved into something really neat in the foreseeable future.
Raymond's first point shows the framework behind the process of open source development; the second point, which describes how a program's vision as well as its code needs to be outlined for potential investors, envisions the partnership with software companies that is a feature of the open source movement. That second point is also notable for its parallel to composition processes. A rough draft in composition does not have to be immaculate, but for its author to turn it into a polished final product, the paper's premise needs to be sound and there needs to be enough content that can be revised into the final product. Not only does this excerpt from Raymond envision the Open Source model, but it also envisions the ways it can be applied to the writing process. Many beginning writing students are frustrated by what they see as inadequate first drafts. By showing them the potential of their work, and how they can achieve that potential through feedback and revision, composition teachers can inspire their students to view their work beyond the first draft and polish each writing piece to its fullest potential.
According to Tiemann (2006), two more events after the release of The Cathedral and the Bazaar helped bring about the open source movement. The first was Netscape's decision in September 1997 to release the source code of Netscape Navigator, its popular Web browser, as free software. The second was the official coining of the term "open source" by Chris Peterson at a Palo Alto, California strategy session in early 1998. Raymond founded the Open Source Initiative with Bruce Perens in February of that year. According to the OSI, success as a standards body has hinged on garnering respect in both the hacker community and in governments and businesses. Hackers are known primarily for being tinkerers who try to get into code and see how it operates, so their presence is vital to the open source movement.
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