Ethical concerns, digital divide, and open source software in computing

The term "open source software" has been used to refer to computer software whose source code is available for public use, either exactly the way it is, or after certain alterations are made to it. Such software normally requires no license fee. OSS applications are available for various purposes like web design, communications, office automation, content management, and operating systems (Necas & Klapetek, 2012). One major difference between proprietary software and OSS is license. Just like copyright material, one will nearly always find that software is licensed. Software licenses reveal what use the software is intended for. OSSs are unique as they are always distributed under certified licenses for meeting open source criteria (Gaff & Ploussios, 2012), including the rights of unrestricted software redistribution, source code access, source code modification, and distribution of the software's modified version.

Review of literature

OSS originates from the following 3 operating systems' creation -- Linux, UNIX, and GNU. Right from the start, OSS has been linked closely to academia. The origins of UNIX lie in the 60's joint venture between Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Bell Labs, for developing the novel "Multics" operating system. Drawing on that project, a few programmers came up with the flexible UNIX operating system (Gaff & Ploussios, 2012). Educational institutions could buy source codes of UNIX at an appreciably lower price compared to that demanded from governmental and business organizations.

The main reasons for the adoption of OSS by government and public organization is transparency, citizen access cost, and more efficient communication and service delivery. Fitzgerald et al. (2011) analyze five cases of the adoption of OSS in public organizations and develop an overarching conceptual framework to explain the enablers and inhibitors of adoption of OSS in public organizations. Through this review, the authors provide a useful resource for academicians, practitioners, and policymakers. The analysis is done through a comparative analysis of the five cases and the themes used are motivation, technology, strategies, social and economics, and the impact of adoption on theory and practice (Fitzgerald et al. 2011).

Analysis of the review

While reading Gaff & Ploussios (2012), the perception gained by the reader is that the authors intend to provide an accurate and authoritative informative piece regarding the matter of origin and adoption of OSS. The paper lays emphasis on the licensure of OSS, and the various types of license available. The paper is provided based on the understanding that the most authoritative regulatory bodies in the field; IEEE and IEEE Computer Society are willing to provide legal, professional, or accounting guidelines on the matter. Therefore, for any party that seeks either legal or expert advice on OSS, then the services of another professional and competent individual should be sought.

The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of MIT initiated a similar project aimed at code enhancement by passing the source code among its programmers. However, IT advancements at the time resulted in the project losing momentum. In the year 1984, Richard Stallman, a programmer, launched the GNU Project (Fitzgerald et al., 2011). The GNU's General Public License (GPS) enables its users to change the source code and release the changed version for use by others, under the very same license. GNU did not have a kernel though, until one was developed by Linus Torvalds. In the year 1992, this kernel became integrated into GNU's operating system. With time, Linux grew in sophistication with the aid of dedicated programmers whose job was attempting improvements on the kernel; thus, Linux-adapted software was created. The years that followed saw the launch of a number of enhanced and commercial Linux versions by vendors like Mandriva, Novell, and Red Hat. Linux continues to be available as a free OSS.

Comparison of Fitzgerald et al. (2011) and Gaff & Ploussios (2012)

Both paper agree that the present-day open software involves more products compared to close Internet-related ones. One can see OSSs, operating systems, special systems and cooperation systems. Concurrently, a number of systems profit through the Internet, making digital cooperation among geographically-distinct entities possible. The Danish public sector and the entire European Union are switching to digital communications when supplying public services -- citizens are situated at the core of this initiative. In other words, coherent services must be provided on a larger level, calling for collaboration among administrative entities and between EU administrative levels, local and county authorities, and national governments (Fitzgerald et al., 2011; Gaff & Ploussios, 2012). Such change urgently requires IT systems for e-governance (e.g., with respect to exchange alternatives among authorities, on security the exchange occurs with, and with the masses. OSS in e-governance poses both opportunities and challenges.

Gaff & Ploussios (2012) argues that a switch to e-governance will require substantial IT investments in the coming years. Hence, it is natural to closely assess the IT meant to be invested in, its application, and who will be in charge of the ownership and creation of basic e-governance technologies. The above activity will boost interest in opportunities unfolding from OSS, making the discussion of OSS's potential application in e-governance relevant as well as economically profitable. On the other hand, Fitzgerald et al. (2011) argues that the educational field's digitization is a fairly novel occurrence, which has effectively transformed the entire sector. Educational institutions and businesses have teamed up to further examine academic digitization's potential, via virtual universities, education portals, courseware, and online courses. The most widely known online education channel is virtual universities. A number of sources offer different forms of web-based courses. Educational portals, while not linked directly to mainstream curriculum, form a central component of education. Lastly, is utilized in the business as well as educational sectors. Courseware development is frequently outsourced to entities creating and publishing offline as well as online study material.

Personal opinion

Numerous opportunities are provided by the Internet, for combining economic and academic objectives on a universally-accessible, common platform. This necessitates large-scale technical support for developing and maintaining the software framework that forms the primary basis of digital education. A majority of universities count on vendors for supporting, for example, online learning management programs and virtual learning settings. This greatly strains their already overtaxed finances. After an era of intense competitive struggle, a small number of major vendors ended up dominating the class of software aimed at higher education, with future monopolization risks (Vetter, 2004). Hence, educational institutions are left with one clear alternative: in-house development of systems for meeting their IT needs. Unfortunately, these kinds of ventures are typically isolated projects characterized by high expense and too many flaws. A second alternative is adopting the collaborative OSS model which allows academic institutions to merge technical and financial resources. Additionally, a vast consumer base offers various testing settings for the novel OSS (Spinellis & Giannikas, 2012).

OSS products are normally more dependable and are developed and upgraded continuously, which is why one must be liberal in funding their development, as they offer a more economical means to circumvent the challenges posed by e-learning software. The dimension of OSS has grown in the recent past especially with the introduction of new OSS: Web 2.0. Web 2.0 covers a collection of practices and technologies which have redefined the Internet user interface, drastically altering our use of the Internet. The key features offered by Web 2.0 include social-networking websites, photo- and video- sharing websites, RSS feeds, blogs, podcasts, tags, discussion forums and wikis (Spinellis & Giannikas, 2012; Lerner, 2013). Transfer of knowledge has developed into a give-and-take process, wherein users contribute as well as learn new facts. Consequently, information is now a commonly accessible thing that is circulated through interactive communities.

While Web 2.0 technology isn't intended expressly for web-based learning, academicians seek interactive Web 2.0 models. Web 2.0 technology integration has transformed digitized education into a platform from a mere medium. Many are of the view that this will facilitate digital learning's evolution into a widespread, mainstream academic component (Vetter, 2009).

OSS offers an organization a range of benefits.

Reduced Costs: OSS typically doesn't demand licensing fees and is priced relatively low. This is one main reason for small enterprises' implementation of this software. However, those who consider OSS need to ensure they take into account total ownership-related costs.

Flexibility: Programmers can tailor standard software packages to their unique business needs. Companies may employ an independent programmer for including any specific feature in their OSS.

Quality and Reliability: When seeking better quality, it is imperative to compare products. Although OSS is largely considered superior in quality and fairly reliable, it would not be right to claim that it is superior to proprietary software in this regard. Enterprises which are new to OSS need to review a few more mature offerings like Apache, Sendmail and Linux (Vetter, 2009).

Lower "Vendor Lock-in": Proprietary software users might face limitations to using only particular vendors. Also, normally, switching vendors is very costly. However, organizations need to bear in mind that OSSs do not totally eliminate one's dependence on vendors. In case of a few OSS products, only a small share of vendors may be able to offer services, security patches or upgrades.

External Support Availability: A number of OSS vendors offer outside technical support, with some offering support contracts as well. Furthermore, service providers also install, maintain and configure OSS systems. Several OSS products enjoy active web-based community support which answers user queries via blogs.

Regardless of these benefits, there still some limitations that an organizations must address.

No Personalized Support: OSS, unlike proprietary software, lacks personalized e-mail or telephone support. But some degree of support is offered by service provider businesses. In case substantial support is needed, one must gauge whether total OSS usage costs exceed those of using proprietary software.

Pace of Change: OSS undergoes constant change and this makes it hard to ensure software compatibility with other software.

Restricted Choice: Fewer choices may be found for OSS.

Absence of warranty: OSS comes without a warranty, since no separate organization backs it (Maurer & Scotchmer, 2006).

Conclusion

OSS products have garnered significant popularity in the higher education domain. However, the question persists of OSS's future in the higher education domain. From a business standpoint, OSS is new to the marketplace, a fact that may spell good news for educational institutions, as it eliminates market monopolization threats. However, OSS projects require more complexity for meeting industry standards. If collaborations carry on at the present pace, this may be fairly easy to achieve. The present-day open software involves more products compared to close Internet-related ones. One can see OSSs, operating systems, special systems and cooperation systems. Concurrently, a number of systems profit through the Internet, making digital cooperation among geographically-distinct entities possible.

References

Fitzgerald, B., Kesan, J.P., Russo, B., Shaikh, M. & Succi, G. (2011). Adopting Open Source Software: A Practical Guide. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press.

Gaff, B. M., & Ploussios, G. J. (2012). Open source software. Computer,45(6), 9-11.

Guzzi, A., Bacchelli, A., Lanza, M., Pinzger, M., & Deursen, A. V. (2013, May). Communication in open source software development mailing lists. In Proceedings of the 10th Working Conference on Mining Software Repositories (pp. 277-286). IEEE Press.

Lerner, J. (2013). The comingled code: Open source and economic development. MIT Press Books, 1.

Maurer, Stephen & Scotchmer, Suzanne. (2006). Open Source Software: The New Intellectual Property Paradigm, NBER Working Paper 12148.

Necas, D., & Klapetek, P. (2012). Gwyddion: an open-source software for SPM data analysis. Open Physics, 10(1), 181-188.

Spinellis, D., & Giannikas, V. (2012). Organizational adoption of open source software. Journal of Systems and Software, 85(3), 666-682.

Vetter, Greg R. (2004). The Collaborative Integrity of Open Source Software, Utah L. Rev. 563

Vetter, Greg R. (2009). Commercial Free and Open Source Software: Knowledge Production, Hybrid Appropriability, and Patents, 77 Fordham L. Rev. 2087