In Section 1, we present essays tied directly to the history and development of open source software. These essays can be loosely grouped into three categories:
Essays on the software development process (Baker, DiBona, Allison, and Laurie)
Essays on business competition and open source (Olson, Murdock, Asay, Walli, and Nelson)
Essays on policy issues related to open source (Seltzer; Gonzalez-Barahona; Sharma and Adkins; Yeo, Liu, and Saxena; and Souza)
The essays on the development process provide a natural extension from the original Open Sources. These essays explore the community and process that open source developers comprise, and explore the subtle similarities and differences between open source and proprietary development.
With the original publication of Open Sources in 1999, the idea of an open source business model was something of a novelty. Today, we see in these essays, that open source, both in its licensing structure and in the commoditizing effect of its distribution model, has become a powerful tool in the hands of businesses large and small.
One critical aspect of the business dynamics behind open source is the desire to avoid vendor lock-in through proprietary software, and to control one's own technology destiny. While these issues matter to businesses, they have become fundamental policy issues in Europe and developing nations. Control of technology resources in the coming decades will likely matter as much as control of natural resources has in the last century. Avoiding monopoly by a single company, or hegemony by a single nation, has become a paramount policy objective. Increasingly, open source is becoming the means of achieving that objective.
Chapter 1, The Mozilla Project: Past and Future
Chapter 2, Open Source and Proprietaryh Software Development
Chapter 3, A Tale of Two Standards
Chapter 4, Open Source and Security
Chapter 5, Dual Licensing
Chapter 6, Open Source and the Commoditization of Software
Chapter 7, Open Source and the Commodity Urge: Disruptive Models for a Disruptive Development Process
Chapter 8, Under the Hood: Open Source and Open Standards Business Models in Context
Chapter 9, Open Source and the Small Entrepreneur
Chapter 10, Why Open Source Needs Copyright Policies
Chapter 11, Libre Software in Europe
Chapter 12, OSS in India
Chapter 13, When China Dances with OSS
Chapter 14, How Much Freedom Do You Want?
