Open Source Software Development: Historical andCurrent Perspectives for Academic Librarianship

Abstract

Open source software production is a successful new innovation model which disproves that only private ownership of intellectual property rights fosters innovations. The emergence of Open Source Software (OSS) has gained the attention of research librarians and created new opportunities for libraries to make optimum utilization of the software keeping in view of the benefits not only to the users, but also to the libraries with respect to time, space and accessibility. The paper attempts to discuss the concept of Open Source Software in the modern era by highlighting the relevance of it to the library profession by tracing historical developments of Open Source Software’s. It also elucidates the development of open source operating systems over a period of time and provides briefly the Open Source Software projects available in the Internet era for the professionals of different disciplines.