I had this conversation with Sarah a few months ago when we out walking in the hills. Her question was not exactly ‘what is open-source software?’, but ‘why does it exist at all?’

Why do people contribute apparently altruistically to create it? How does a situation exist whereby large, complex pieces of very intelligent, well designed software can come into being without anyone seeming to profit from it? Perhaps it’s just because a requirement for it exists? Is it surprising to think that this requirement is as strong a force as the desire to profit?

After reading this definition, an open-source idea could be defined as one which is: Freely distributed, transparently constructed, flexible, modular and free to modify and change at will. It should retain the original integrity of the idea as it grows and develops without being constrained by it.

Getting confused? Me too. So I’ll try to taxonomise it. I’m going to think of a some real-world concepts which are unrelated to computer software and see if I can categorise them as Open-Source or not.

Open-Source
Darwinism
Religion
Farming/Husbandry
Exploration
Sports

Not Open-Source
Adventure
Fossil Fuels
Credit Cards
Democracy
The Health Industry

God. I hope it stops f$%^ing raining soon.

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