The Open Source Initiative
The Open Source Initiative is an association that has taken up the task of promoting open-source software as an ideology and a practice.This revolutionary organization was created in February 1998 by Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond. It happened around the same time when Netscape Communications Corporation, published the source code for its main brand and product Netscape Communicator product as free software. This happened because Microsoft’s monopolizing tactics with the Internet Explorer had created really stiff competition for Netscape and their profit margins were dipping. All these factors are often considered the reasons behind the formation of the Open Source Initiative.
The terminology- ‘open source initiative’ was at one point also used by the ObjectWeb consortium to differentiate market-aware accomplishments from open source plans. A prime example of an open source initiative is the ESB initiative inducted by ObjectWeb in mid 2004.
Ever since its induction and setup, the open source movement has attracted plenty of controversy within the hacker circles. The initiative is often associated with the free software movement that forwards and advocates open source software as an alternative label for free software. The difference is that the latter is predominantly on pragmatic rather than philosophical grounds while the former claims an origin in both philosophical and practical grounds.
Some of the initiative’s co-founders have in fact claimed much deeper historical roots, taking a broad historical and forward looking view of the movement and contending that its actual beginnings were long before the term ‘open source’ was even in existence. The founders have traced the beginning all the way back to the early ARPANET and Unix communities and early hacker groups like the Tech Model Railroad Club.
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