Open source software in the real world

Let's look at open source software using a real-world example. To me, the FreeDOS Project will always be the first example I look to, so I'll use that. It should speak to the commitment of the open source software community that FreeDOS continues under active (if slow) development 15 years after it was conceived. How has FreeDOS held the interest of its users? Because FreeDOS embodies the important qualities that an open source project must possess in order for it to succeed.

Jim Hall's second installment...

More like this

Are you interested in software usability and open source? If so, my friend Jim would like your help. He is doing a study of usability in Open Source software. I'll post his entire request below along with a link to his blog. Also, he'll probably be doing some other interent based interolocution…
Some current news in the Linuxosphere, and some things going on on my very own desktop, have me wondering about the nature of the Linux Desktop. Here are a few questions to ponder. Are Gnome and Ubuntu ruining the Linux Desktop? And if they are, what do we do about it? Is Linux currently at a…
The history of what we call "OpenOffice" is complex and confusing. It started as a project of Sun corporation, to develop an office suit that was not Microsoft Office, to use internally. Later, a version became more generally available known as Star Office, but also, a version called "OpenOffice…
In part I, I wrote about my first semester of teaching on-line and talked about our challenges with technology. Blackboard had a database corruption event during finals week and I had all kinds of struggles with the Windows version of Microsoft Excel. Mike wrote and asked if I thought students…

FreeDOS is the way software should be - even though DOS is no longer mainstream, with FreeDOS people still have access to the assembler and the code to make any modifications they need to support their legacy systems. I've still got a few copies of ancient GCC compilers and some now rather dated Linux kernels. Some people even resurrected truly ancient versions of GCC and Linux (from over 15 years ago) just to see if they can still do a build on a modern machine. (Of course they can.)

By MadScientist (not verified) on 14 Oct 2009 #permalink