Saturday, 22 October 2011

blog and forum about open source







http://www.linuxforums.org/forum


This forum allows the public to ask questions or express their views on open source.in addition, this forum is always updated information on open source. These allow the public to know information about the open source easily and quickly.









This question linux forum allows users or the public to ask questions about Linux and all doubts about the linux will be answered. This forum allows the public to interact directly with the administration to ask a question about linux is not surejawapannya.this very good forum for students and anyone wanting to learn andincrease knowledge about linux.






just linux forum only discusses linux. All the information about Linux can be shared inthis forum. you all can talk about linux.









Blog about this http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source very good because it contains all the necessary things like software, hardware, security, and so on. it is also constantly updated to allow the followers of this blog to follow.








This http://blog.mosc.my/ blog about Malaysia Open Source Conference (MOSC) And Official Blog Archive. here it will display the latest information about the activities of MOSC for public settings and track the progress of MOSC with linux.


the existence of open source in the present cause the public to find out information about open source. This blog is ideal for students or people new to know linux. try and understand what is open source. should you be interested in this blog.



Saturday, 8 October 2011

Promate Open Source System

Welcome to the World of Open source. The place where to get latest information about open source softwares, operating systems(OS),latest news on open source software products,tips,lessons,links to download cool softwares,source codes,info about most popular operating systems like, opensolaries, linux, ubuntu, kubuntu and many more. Feel the freedom of cloud computing & stop spending your money on licensed software products anymore.

An Open Source AntiVirus Protection 

Here Introducing an Absolutely Free Anti Virus Application to keep your PC Virus Free!!!!
Nowadays What the most of Anti Virus Software Producers like AVG, Avast, Avira and so on do is that, Launch a Version which is free with less security and launch their commercial version adding more security and options after that. This is a business trick that the all of Anti virus companies do.You all readers must know that and some may already aware of that. just be free from those trackers and be familiar with Open Source Anti Virus Protections.. yes its absolutely.. No Trial Versions No business Tricks..


yes its clamwin open source anti virus protection for all of you...
lets check it out how is it..
ClamWin Free Anti-virus is used by more than 600,000 users worldwide on a daily basis. It comes with an easy installer and open source code. You may download and use it absolutely free of charge.


its Features:-

  • High detection rates for viruses and spy-ware.
  • Scanning Scheduler.
  • Automatic downloads of regularly updated Virus Database.
  • Standalone virus scanner and right-click menu integration to Microsoft Windows Explorer.
  • Adding to Microsoft Outlook to remove virus-infected attachments automatically.

 

Can Media Portal Replace Windows Media Center??

 MEDIA PORTAL
everything else is just a media center 
MediaPortal is a free open source media center software, ideal for turning your PC into a very advanced multi media center, or Home Theater PC (HTPC).
Using MediaPortal, you can listen to your favorite music and radio; watch your videos and DVDs; or view, schedule and record live TV, much like a digital video recorder such as TiVo, but better. And that's only the basic features!

Features:
  • Listen to music and radio
  • Play videos, movies and DVDs 
  • View pictures or create a slideshow 
  • Watch, schedule and record live TV - like a TiVo, but more, and for free! 
  • Stream media, radio and TV to any HTPC / PC connected to your network 
  • Use a remote to control your HTPC from your couch
  • Check weather, news, or information on the web, even play games!  


        

History about open source



Introduction to the Open Source


An open-source software (OSS) is a computer software for which the source code and certain other rights served for free of charge.nowadays open source softwares are more popular then earlier and todays generation looking for the software that really useful them and for free of charge. Another advantage of using open source software is that the source code which used to make the software is provided along with it. Then anyone can develop the software using it.


History about Open Source  

Richard Stallman
 In the early 80's, a programmer named Richard Stallman worked for MIT. He spent huge amounts of time working on the original Emacs, an operating system called ITS, and the exceedingly cool LISP machines.

Stallman wrote good software. His programs were clever--they were frequently built around a few good ideas that made everything else easy.
But Stallman was also an ideologue. His software came with instructions: Share this code with your fellow users. Learn from it. Improve upon it. And when you're done, please give something back to the community.

To Stallman, this sharing was a moral principle. And as it turned out, Stallman would happily turn down money, fame and glory in the name of his moral principles.
You can read the whole story in Levy's excellent (but out-of-print) book, Hackers: Heros of the Computer Revolution.

The GNU Manifesto
In 1984, Stallman was wrestling with the software equivalent of Napster. Like the Grateful Dead, he was an artist who wanted users to share his work. He asked them to send him some money if they could--so he could write more--but he never required them to pay a cent. He didn't want to discourage sharing.

But Stallman had a larger problem: Even if users could share the software that he wrote, they wouldn't be able share anybody else's. This bothered him.

He could have gone down the Napster route, and encouraged software piracy. Or he could have given up, and only shared a few small tools.

Instead, Stallman decided to write an entire operating system, a complete set of development tools, and all the applications that anybody would ever need. He planned to give all these tools away, so that his users would have something to share.

Sure, this was a pretty laughable goal, especially for a man who lived in his office at MIT and rarely combed his hair.

Stallman's vision is laid out in the GNU Manifesto. This manifesto is either a profoundly important document or the mimeographed ravings of some guy in the city park. I've never been entirely sure which.

The GNU Project and The Free Software Foundation

"Free software" is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of "free speech", not "free beer." -Quoted from the Free Software Foundation web site
Stallman found some volunteers, set up the Free Software Foundation, and started writing software.

He wrote a new version of Emacs, which still gets rave reviews from authors like Neal Stephenson. He wrote GCC, which was one of the best C compilers of the age. He enlisted hordes of volunteers, who began to clone the entire Unix toolset (which was quite popular at the time).

The GNU project also adopted some their software from outside sources. They borrowed the X Window System from MIT and Compaq. They adopted TeX (a typesetting system) from Donald Knuth. They stayed away, however, from the BSD code, which was the target of an AT&T lawsuit at the time.

Linus Torvalds
By 1991, the GNU Project had either written or located most of the parts of a complete Unix system. But they were having problems with the kernel.

Stallman (and other volunteers) were working on a kernel called the HURD. Unfortunately, the HURD was a bit too clever, and the team had gotten in over their heads. They certainly weren't in any danger of shipping.

Meanwhile, young Linus Torvalds was hacking on a tiny kernel, just a toy. He announced it on comp.os.minix:

I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.
To compile Linux, you needed GCC. To run any programs, you needed the GNU C library. And half of the programs available for Linux were originally written by GNU volunteers.
Linus never made any secret of his debt to the GNU project. He even decided to use their (rather complicated) software license as a way of saying thank you.

The Linux Explosion
But despite Linus's debt to the GNU project, he made a much better leader than Stallman. Linus was a software guy, pure and simple. He never spent much time writing polemics or arguing philosphy. And he never planned very far ahead. He just did his thing, and argued for his beliefs by example.

(Back when Linux had perhaps a hundred thousand users, Linus made an offhand quip about "world domination". Now that Linux is a household name, he no longer make jokes like that.)
Linus could convince people, many of whom were frightened by Stallman. And Linux grew from "just a hobby" to the third most popular operating system in the world.

Netscape and Open Source
Eric Raymond was an old friend of Stallman's. He had written some pretty good software in his day, and helped edit the Jargon File, a compedium of folklore about ITS, Unix and the Internet.
He wrote a paper called The Cathedral and The Bazaar. (The Cathedral, in this paper, doesn't actually represent proprietary software. If anything, it represents the HURD and Stallman's insular development methodologies.)

Netscape took a liking to Eric's writings, and decided to turn their browser into a bazaar.
Eric was very much into spin control, as it turned out, and wanted to repackage Stallman's radical ideas into a less intimidating form. He convened some friends, put the kibosh of the word "free" (which was politically unacceptable), and helped coin the term "open source".

At the time, people like Larry Wall, Brian Behlendorf and Guido van Rossum weren't talking to each other, or to the Linux developers. They'd built their own communities, but there was no real unification.

Tim O'Reilly sold a lot of books about Perl, Python, Apache, and various other "open source" software. The O'Reilly books were of extraordinarily high quality, but they were proprietary. (Stallman had already pointed this out to anybody who would listen.)

So people like Tim and Eric worked on the PR, and started pulling these various groups together. And for the most part, their efforts did accomplish something. Today, everyone's heard of open source, and people like Guido and Linus actually talk to each other.

The True Leaders
But don't mistake the open source PR schtick for the real heart of the free software movement.
Those of us in the trenches have all wrestled with Stallman's ideas. Some of us have accepted Stallman; others have rejected him. In our hearts, most of us are uneasy about him. For better or for worse, Stallman's not a comfortable man.

Just about everybody loves Linus and Guido and Larry. They're great guys, and they write some cool software. They're decent folks, too--not fanatic preachers, but good, solid people who are a bit embarassed by their fame.

Closer to home, we all know some individual project leaders. These folks help maintain small (but important) projects. Nearly all of them are volunteers, coding for love or necessity. A few can make a living through consulting. With very few exceptions, the project leaders are wonderful, helpful people.

Giving Credit
Every once in a while, you'll see the terms free software and GNU/Linux. These terms are awkward (and don't make for good PR), but they preserve the memory of Stallman's efforts.
This movement isn't held together by ideology or by secret summits. Most of the developers don't even have an enemy (despite what you might have heard from the jerks on Slashdot). Many free software developers don't even preach against proprietary software--they write it for a living, and only contribute to free software on the weekends.

The 9 most important events in "Open Source" history.



1980 – Usenet arrives

 Maybe this is a controversial inclusion to start with, but open source development has always been driven by collaboration, and with the arrival of Usenet, developers could collaborate on a worldwide level like never before and made it easy to share software.

 

Usenet (built on top of the infrastructure that is now called the Internet) was in many ways a precursor to today’s Internet forums and predated the World Wide Web by over a decade.

1983 – Richard Stallman starts the GNU Project

Started by Richard Stallman in 1983, the GNU Project is a mass collaboration project for open and free software that has flourished even to this day. Stallman followed up the GNU Project with the creation of the Free Software Foundation in 1985 to further support the free software community.

 

The GNU Project has resulted in a huge amount of open source software over time and gave birth to the GNU General Public License (GPL), arguably the most popular open source license model out there. And when the Linux kernel arrived, GNU software made it into a complete OS. 

1989 – Work begins on 386BSD

Although BSD Unix had been open source for many years and had one of the first open source licenses (the BSD license), unfortunately you also needed a separate license from AT&T to be able to use it because it included AT&T Unix code.

 

This problem was finally fixed by William and Lynne Jolitz in 1992 when they released 386BSD (also called Jolix). In development since 1989, it was the first completely free and open source version of BSD, independent of the AT&T license. It would spawn several versions of BSD that are still in wide use today; FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD.

1991 – Linus Torvalds creates Linux

The decision by Linus Torvalds to develop his own version of the Minix kernel resulted in the now world-famous Linux. (An interesting side note is that he initially wanted to call it “Freax”.) The Linux kernel became the last piece of the puzzle for the GNU operating system project, providing an entirely free and open source operating system. 

 

Torvalds famously posted the following message to the comp.os.minix newsgroup in 1991: I’m doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones.

1993 – The founding of Red Hat

 Red Hat, a company based around its own Linux distribution, made open source big business. The company proved that it was possible to be highly profitable with something that is, at its core, free. Red Hat has raised the profile of open source significantly over the years.

 
To give you an idea of how much buzz there was around Red Hat in the late ‘90s, when it went public in 1999, it had one of the largest first-day gains in the history of Wall Street. 

1994 – Development starts on MySQL

Michael Widenius and David Axmark started developing MySQL in 1994 (in Sweden, something we feel compelled to point out since we’re Swedes too here at Pingdom  and released the first version in 1995.

 

Over the years, MySQL has become the open source database solution of choice and is used by a huge number of companies and websites like Facebook and Wikipeda. As of 2009, there were more than 11 million MySQL installations.
MySQL has also, just like Red Hat did, shown how open source can be big business. In 2008, Sun paid one billion dollars for the company.

1996 – Apache takes over the Web

 The Apache HTTP server showed how an open source product can come to almost completely dominate a market. 

Based on the NSCA HTTPd, one of the very first web servers, Apache has consistently been the most widely used web server software on the Internet since 1996, and it doesn’t look like this will change anytime soon.

1998 – Netscape open sources its web browser

 In its increasingly desperate war with Microsoft and Internet Explorer, Netscape finally decided to open source its web browser early in 1998 and started the open source community Mozilla to hold the reigns.
 
Although Netscape eventually faded into obscurity and folded, without this historic move there would have been no Mozilla, and without Mozilla there would have been no Firefox, and we all know how influential that web browser has become.

2004 – Canonical releases Ubuntu

When South African millionaire Mark Shuttleworth’s company, Canonical, released the Debian-based Ubuntu in 2004, few could have expected what a massive success it would become.

Ubuntu quickly became the most widely used Linux distribution by far, especially on the desktop, and has brought Linux to the masses like no other distribution.

 


 


 




Saturday, 6 August 2011

VIDEO


Linux vs Microsoft

 Fedora

ADVANTAGE OF THE OPEN SOURCE SYSTEM


The availability of the source code and the right to modify.
it is very important. It enables the unlimited tuning and improvement of a software product. It also makes it possible to port the code to new hardware, to adapt it to changing conditions, and to reach a detailed understanding of how the system works. This is why many experts are reaching the conclusion that to really extend the lifetime of an application, it must be available in source form. In fact, no binary-only application more than 10 years old now survives in unmodified form, while several open source software systems from the 1980s are still in widespread use (although in many cases conveniently adapted to new environments). Source code availability also makes it much easier to isolate bugs, and (for a programmer) to fix them. 

The right to redistribute modifications and improvements to the code.
reuse other open source code, permits all the advantages due to the modifiability of the software to be shared by large communities. This is usually the point that differentiates open source software licences from ``nearly free'' ones. In substance, the fact that redistribution rights cannot be revoked, and that they are universal, is what attracts a substantial crowd of developers to work around open source software projects.

The right to use the software in any way. 
This, combined with redistribution rights, ensures (if the software is useful enough), a large population of users, which helps in turn to build up a market for support and customization of the software, which can only attract more and more developers to work in the project. This in turn helps to improve the quality of the product, and to improve its functionality. Which, once more, will cause more and more users to give the product a try, and probably to use it regularly. 

There is no one with the power to restrict in a unilateral way how the software is used.
 even in a retroactive way. Such a power manifests, for instance, when a proprietary software vendor decides not to upgrade some software product for some old platform. In this case, customers can only stick to the old version of the software, or switch to another product. If open source software is used, customers can also fund some development for the desired platform, or look for other vendors to provide the upgrades (of the very same product).

There is no single entity on which the future of the software depends.
This is a very common concern with proprietary software. Let us say that a company uses a software product, and relies on the software manufacturer for upgrades and continued development. If the software manufacturer closes doors, or decides to discontinue development of the product, no one has the right to take the program and continue development on it, effectively killing its usability in the market. This has happened many times, and this problem is amplified by the recent mergers in the software market, that usually lead to ``cannibalization'' of some software product to allow just one or two to get to the market. Open source software effectively protects against this, because if the group or company that originated the code decides to stop development, it is always possible to fund another software group to continue the maintenance and improvement, without legal nor practical limitations.

No ``black boxes'' are possible.
  This point is so important that open source is now considered by many experts as one of the necessary conditions for dependable applications. There are several reasons for this importance. One of them is related to the dependability of the services provided by a given software. By having the source code available, it is possible to perform a thorough inspection and verify the correctness of the algorithm and the implementation scheme used. This is also possible in part even with closed source or nearly free licences.

There is always the possibility of ``forking''. 
Or creating an alternative code base if the current one is in some way perceived as wrongly managed. This is sometimes considered a disadvantage, having to manage not only one code base, but two. A ``fork'' is a subdivision of the code base in two different parts, each managed by a different group. Forks happens for technical or licence reasons, for example because a particular release is made under a non-free licence, the previous one is used as a base for subsequent free releases. 

No per-copy fees can be asked for modified versions.
And anyone can use the current code base to start new projects. Working knowledge can be gathered at a minimal cost. This is what made Internet software systems such an important factor in the new economy: students, and people trying new technologies were able to integrate and adopt them immediately, without the hurdles of commercial or non-disclosure licence agreements. In addition, the right to freely modify them allowed for the incredible expansion in the number of communication protocols and systems, each perfectly tailored to the needs of their users. This is also a reason for the overwhelming success of the Linux kernel, widely employed by students thanks to its near-zero cost, and subsequently used by the same students in the startups originated by them, when they turn into entrepreneurs after leaving University.

Friday, 5 August 2011

FREE IN OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE


Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS) (also abbreviated as FLOSS or FOSS) has risen to great prominence. Briefly, OSS/FS programs are programs whose licenses give users the freedom to run the program for any purpose, to study and modify the program, and to redistribute copies of either the original or modified program (without having to pay royalties to previous developers).
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do these things and that manufacturers of consumer-facing hardware allow user modifications to their hardware. Free software is generally available without charge, but can have a fee, such as in the form of charging for CDs or other distribution medium among other ways.

From 1998 onward, alternative terms for free software came into use. The most common are software libre, free and open source software (FOSS) and free, libre and open source software (FLOSS). The Software Freedom Law Center was founded in 2005 to protect and advance FLOSS. Commercial software may sometimes offer freedoms which are typical of free and open source software. Contrary to a popular misconception that software is either free or commercial they are unrelated traits. One example of free commercial software is GNAT.It has been developed and is available commercially (i.e., against payment), but is free software because of its non-proprietary nature, with the source code publicly available. On the other hand, free software and proprietary software are opposite traits, and an application can be one or the other but never both, contingent upon the availability of the source code under certain minimum freedoms.

Free software, which may or may not be distributed free of charge, is distinct from freeware which, by definition does not require payment for use. The authors or copyright holders of freeware may retain all rights to the software; it is not necessarily permissible to reverse engineer, modify, or redistribute freeware.

Since free software may be freely redistributed it is generally available at little or no cost. Free software business models are usually based on adding value such as applications, support, training, customization, integration, or certification. At the same time, some business models which work with proprietary software are not compatible with free software, such as those that depend on the user to pay for a license in order to lawfully use the software product.

The free software movement was conceived in 1983 by Richard Stallman to satisfy the need for and to give the benefit of software freedom to computer users.Stallman founded the Free Software Foundation in 1985 to provide the organizational structure to advance his Free Software ideas.