Will Open Source Software Unlock the Potential of eLearning?

Technology has great potential to expand and improve the ways people learn, yet eLearning has done little more than mimic earlier learning and teaching practices. Why isn't technology living up to its tremendous potential? The answer may be, in part, that education has been treated as a market of learning rather than an environment for learning. Markets, and the commercial considerations at their base, are driven toward uniformity and reproducibility. Environments, structured with educational underpinnings, support diversity, a requirement for the experimentation needed to unlock the potential of eLearning.
Open source applications

You've probably noticed the "buzz" about open source this past year. Open source is a way of building, owning, and using software as a community. Online, in the journals, in meetings, and in hallway conversations at conferences, open source projects like Sakai, OSPI, uPortal, and others are getting a lot of attention. In fact, Educause 2004 will probably be remembered as the tipping point when the open source movement spread beyond the early adopters and innovators who nurtured it over the past several years.

Open source is not a new phenomenon. It has a history nearly as rich and long as the software industry itself. So why all of the buzz now? The buzz, I think, is about the accelerated evolution of open source. For many years open source has thrived, even dominated in many parts of the software stack. Probably the most well known examples are the Linux operating system, the Apache Web server that claims 67 percent market share, and uPortal, the most successful enterprise portal among colleges and universities. The illustration below shows prominent open source software in platforms, servers, middleware, and tools. What is new and exciting is that in the past few years open source has spread into a new part of the software stack--the applications layer. This evolution brings open source in touch with many more users and offers an attractive alternative to proprietary software, high prices, and limited innovation.

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What does open source software mean?

Most software that you buy or download only comes in the compiled ready-to-run version. Compiled means that the actual program code that the developer created, known as the source code, has run through a special program called a compiler that translates the source code into a form that the computer can understand (see How C Programming Works for details on compilers). It is extremely difficult to modify the compiled version of most applications and nearly impossible to see exactly how the developer created different parts of the program. Most commercial software manufacturers see this as an advantage that keeps other companies from copying their code and using it in a competing product. It also gives them control over the quality and features found in a particular product.

Open source software is at the opposite end of the spectrum. The source code is included with the compiled version and modification or customization is actually encouraged. The software developers who support the open source concept believe that by allowing anyone who's interested to modify the source code, the application will be more useful and error-free over the long term.

To be considered as open source software by the software development industry, certain criteria must be met:

• The program must be freely distributed (It can be part of a package that is sold though, such as Red Hat has done with Linux in the example below).
• Source code must be included.
• Anyone must be allowed to modify the source code.
• Modified versions can be redistributed.
• The license must not require the exclusion of other software or interfere with the operation of other software.
  

Let's take a look at a real world example of open source software. In 1991, Linus Torvalds, a student at the University of Helsinki in Finland, developed a new operating system based on Minix, a derivative of Unix, which he dubbed Linux. Torvalds released version 0.02 of Linux under the GNU General Public License, which provides a good legal definition of open source software. A lot of people around the world downloaded Linux and began working with it. Many of these users were programmers in their own right and made modifications to the source code that Torvalds had included. Over the next three years, Torvalds received these modified versions from the other programmers and incorporated many of the changes into the baseline version and released Linux version 1.0 in 1994.

A common concern for end-users who wish to use open source software is the lack of a warranty and technical support. Because the software's license encourages modification and customization, it is nearly impossible to support. This is why Red Hat Software, founded in 1994, created the "Official Red Hat Linux" and is able to sell this normally "free" software. The main value that Red Hat adds to the package is a warranty and technical support. For most businesses, the assurance of technical support has been a key factor in the decision to buy Linux instead of simply downloading it for free. In addition to Red Hat, there are several other companies that have packaged Linux, usually with additional software, for resale.

Besides Linux, Mozilla (Netscape browser core), Apache (Web server), PERL (Web scripting language) and PNG (graphics file format) are all examples of very popular software that is based on open source.

Source : http://computer.howstuffworks.com/

OPEN SOURCE

1. Generically, open source refers to a program in which the source code is available to the general public for use and/or modification from its original design free of charge, i.e., open. Open source code is typically created as a collaborative effort in which programmers improve upon the code and share the changes within the community. Open source sprouted in the technological community as a response to proprietary software owned by corporations.
   
   
2. A certification standard issued by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) that indicates that the source code of a computer program is made available free of charge to the general public. The rationale for this movement is that a larger group of programmers not concerned with proprietary ownership or financial gain will produce a more useful and bug -free product for everyone to use. The concept relies on peer review to find and eliminate bugs in the program code, a process which commercially developed and packaged programs do not utilize. Programmers on the Internet read, redistribute and modify the source code, forcing an expedient evolution of the product. The process of eliminating bugs and improving the software happens at a much quicker rate than through the traditional development channels of commercial software as the information is shared throughout the open source community and does not originate and channel through a corporation's research and development cogs.
   
   OSI dictates that in order to be considered "OSI Certified" a product must meet the following criteria:
   
   
   • The author or holder of the license of the source code cannot collect royalties on the distribution of the program
   • The distributed program must make the source code accessible to the user
   • The author must allow modifications and derivations of the work under the program's original name
   • No person, group or field of endeavor can be denied access to the program
   • The rights attached to the program must not depend on the program's being part of a particular software distribution
   • The licensed software cannot place restrictions on other software that is distributed with it.
     

Source : http://www.webopedia.com/