The Potential of Open Source

There are multiple voices, at times contested and competing, that have influenced and continue to influence
the development of FLOSS approaches. Given the commercial sensitivities in this area, much of the research to date on the potential of FLOSS in education or the public sector focuses primarily on FLOSS as a business model.

There are comparatively few discussions of how FLOSS as an approach might have implications for educational approaches and philosophies. It is important to note that FLOSS is still in its early stages. It is only in the last five years that major quantitative studies of the implications of FLOSS at a national level have been undertaken To date, there are no empirical studies which offer a reliable insight into the potential uses of FLOSS approaches as a basis for teaching and learning or the development of teacher communities, although there are parallels that might be drawn between FLOSS approaches

FLOSS is more than software: it is a cultural phenomenon that is underpinned by technological development with the aim of contributing to the public good. It is of relevance to our understanding of how people learn and produce knowledge; of how communities collaborate and work to solve problems; and of how innovative practices emerge.

The following history provides readers new to the field with an outline map of some of the diverse and overlapping narratives which inter-relate in the history of the FLOSS movement. It is a history which interweaves legal issues and licences with programming practices, technological developments and new forms of collaboration and communication. All of these factors need to be considered in understanding the implications of FLOSS for educational practice.

In the early 1960s, before software development was a major industry, most code was created in an academic-style environment, It was circulated around communities of experts, discussed, peer-reviewed, and built upon. Computers were vast physical objects the size of rooms and the cost of running programs was high. Consequently, all software was developed in well-funded organisations, often in technologically advanced academic institutions in collaboration with the military, security forces and large commercial enterprises. As the number of software producers and consumers was too small to allow for a commercial software ecology, source code was not considered a valuable commodity. As it had marginal economic value, it was natural to consider source code a public good.

Many of the enthusiasts who understood how to program were more interested in solving problems than making money. In this environment, new software moved around quickly on magnetic tape, on punch cards or on paper printouts.

The early history and development of FLOSS has been dependent on the availability of technologies that connect large numbers of people in a distributed network. The availability of such technologies continues to increase and the power of them continues to expand. Educators are just starting to understand the implications of such technologies and to incorporate them into teaching and learning models.

Madhav Mishra
B.Tech Computer Science & Engineering (2009 Batch)