A post by our colleague Timur Achmetow, Development “Systems Software”

Open source software (OSS) such as Android, Linux™ or Java™ is widely used these days and can be found in smartphones (Android), set-top boxes (Linux™, Java™), TVs (Linux™ kernel) or PCs (Linux™, Firefox^®, OpenOffice™) for example. But what exactly is OSS?

A software is called open source software if the source code is freely available to everyone meaning that users can freely modify the software program and can make this modified form available to others as often as they like. This way, they actively contribute to the continuous improvement of the software’s quality.

Criteria by the Free Software Foundation

A software can only be designated as open source software if it fulfills the following criteria specified by the Free Software Foundation[1]:

• The software can be used freely for any purpose without restrictions.

• The source code of the software is freely available and can be studied.

• The software can be modified and enhanced.

• The software can be released to the public in its modified form for the benefit of the whole community.

Due to these liberties, the users are the driving force. Everyone who likes has the chance to study, to use, to improve and to share the software. A free source code grows steadily or in other words is dynamically modified by the users.

Core Team, Committers, and Community

Often several parties participate in an open source project. There is the “core team” that is responsible for the central control and coordination of the project. The people in the core team act as contact persons for the “community” which in turn consists of all people involved in the project. They test the software, report errors, make suggestions, or develop the source code further.

“Committers” are called those people who review the software’s quality. They analyze the proposals submitted and the revised source code before they upload it to the public repository, a central storage place. The newly developed software created from this joint repository is again made available to the community. This way everyone benefits from the changes made.

The parties involved in the project usually communicate with each other over the Internet – via an Internet forum or so-called mailing lists. In most open source projects bug tracking tools are used (e.g. Bugzilla) to facilitate the management of errors, bugs and improvements.

We at INDUSTRONIC use open source software in many areas and projects of Product Development. On the other hand, the open source community also benefits from INDUSTRONIC as our employees are part of the community. They give feedback, submit suggestions and actively contribute to the enhancement of the open source software used.