Education for a Digital World Advice, Guidelines and Effective Practice from Around Globe, 2008a

8 – Exploring Open Source for Educators: We’re Not in Kansas Anymore – Entering OS
ware. Potter (2000) states, “Placing the risk of litigation
on the open source [or free software] developer may in
turn increase the price of … products. Another negative
consequence is the possible deterrence of programmers
from contributing useful code”.
Since the end of Unix market control, another major
barrier to freely sourced software has been Microsoft
domination. C. DiBona et al. (1992) write, “The question
really is not whether venture capital funding will
flow to Open Source, but why the flow has only begun to
trickle in that direction … Why did it take so long to
catch on?” (p. 10). They go on to answer this question:
Taking a look at the computing landscape, you’ve
got a situation where a very large company with
very deep pockets controls the lion’s share of the
commercial market. In Silicon Valley, hopeful applications
vendors looking for backing from the
angel and venture capital community learn very
quickly that if they position themselves against
Microsoft, they will not get funded. Every startup
either has to play Microsoft’s game or not play at
all. (C. DiBona et al., 1992, p. 10)
According to DiBona et al. (1992), programmers forced
to play the Microsoft game are locked into the goal of
assuring the proprietary nature of their work—“the goal
of making the program completely dependent on Microsoft
libraries … making any Windows native program
very difficult to port to other operating systems” (p. 10).
The author’s also point out that one of the main reasons
Microsoft has not dominated the Internet has been the
Net’s dedication to “a powerful collection of open standards
maintained on the merit of individual participation,
not the power of a corporate wallet” (C. DiBona et
al., 1992, p. 10). The authors point out, that just like the
Internet, free and open source developers “compete
based on open standards and shared code” and generally
work towards compatibility (C. DiBona et al., 1992, p.
10). Recently, it appears that the freely sourced movements
have affected even Microsoft’s strategies. In September
2006, Microsoft promised “not to enforce
patents for technology in Web services specifications,
which are used in connecting applications in serviceoriented
architectures and other forms of standardsbased
distributed computing” (Gonsalves, 2006).
Gonsalves (2006 ) goes on to say that this was done in an
effort by Microsoft “[to] help promote widespread
adoption of Web services, which play an important part
in how Microsoft ties its software to its own products
and other applications” by targeting “developers and
customers working with commercial or open-source
[/free] software.”
While community building and interpersonal relations
have been a significant factor in the success of
freely sourced software, other aspects help propel its
increasing acceptance. Potter (2000) said:
Economically, open source [/free software] is a
more efficient way to allocate the benefits of copyright
to society. Because current software protection
law benefits relatively few developers, there is a need
for change. Open source [/free software] exhibits
valid, economical, and marketable alternatives to
proprietary software development and distribution.
These reasons listed by Potter (2000) make open
source and free software an increasingly popular choice.
For example, Apache server, an open source application
with over 11 years in the industry, is now used by more
than 62 percent of the top developers in the server industry.
In comparison, Microsoft holds less than half of
the market share at roughly 30 percent (Netcraft, Ltd.,
2006). Apache’s market share increased from its February
2002 estimate at just over 58 percent (Netcraft, Ltd.,
2002). In addition, interest in other open source and free
software is growing. A March 2005 article, “Estimating
the Number of Linux Users (or: why we think we’re 29
million)” did a review of Internet hits in February 2005
as recorded by Teoma and Google (combined). The
results are summarized in Table 8.1, Open Source vs.
Windows Interest by Internet Hits.
Table 8.1. (Adapted from “Estimating the Number of Linux Users (or: why we
think we’re 29 million)” (Linux Online, Inc., 2006)
Operating System
Hits
Linux + linspire 269,000,000
Solaris 27, 000,000
*BSD 55, 000,000
Total Freely Sourced 351,000,000
Win3.1/95/98/2000/ME 88, 000,000
Win2003/Server 19, 000,000
WinXP 33, 000,000
WinNT 33, 000,000
WinLonghorn 33, 000,000
Total Windows 206,000,000
102 Education for a Digital World