Current Open Source Software Products
2009; American Library Association; Volume: 45; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1945-4538
Autores Tópico(s)Distributed and Parallel Computing Systems
ResumoThis chapter lists describes a number of open source products that are currently available. This is by no means an exhaustive list; the open source software packages described in this chapter were selected because they are utilized by one or more of the libraries contacted for this report. Many additional open source applications are in fact available. There is a large, regularly updated list of open source products available at Wikipedia, as well as many other websites. (1) Operating Systems A computer's operating system is the permanently installed program that administers all of the computer's activity. While Microsoft Windows is the best-known proprietary operating system, there are considerably more options when it comes to open source operating systems. While all of the organizations mentioned in this report use Linux, it is not the only open source operating system, nor is it the only one worthy of attention. The Berkeley Standard Distribution, or BSD family of Unix operating systems, is a Linux alternative that is highly regarded by many systems administrators. The Crawford County Federated Library System uses OpenBSD on some of its servers, including those that support LTSP terminals. Linux The term Linux is used as shorthand for the GNU/Linux operating system. GNU/Linux refers to the combination of system utilities software developed as part of the GNU project the Linux kernel. The GNU project began in 1983 with the goal of producing a free Unix-like operating system that would be open, cooperative, give users the ability to access the source code modify the software. (2) The Linux kernel is the core of a Linux operating system, which was originally developed by Linus Torvalds. Unfortunately, there is no one way to organize distribute all the system utilities software that typically come with the Linux kernel; thus, there are many Linux distributions. Among the more popular for general use are Debian, Mandriva, Red Hat (and its free variant CentOS), SUSE, Ubuntu. Each of these has its supporters advocates, but Ubuntu Linux is perhaps the most popular for use as a desktop operating system. Ubuntu's developers have placed particular emphasis on ease of installation, ease of use, a complete set of graphical system utilities, good printing support, an extensive application menu--the things that are needed to make an operating system viable for use on a desktop computing system. Ubuntu Linux is the starting point on which the Groovix Linux distribution used by Howard County Library is based. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] Ubuntu website www.ubuntu.com OpenBSD, FreeBSD The OpenBSD operating system is a variant of Berkeley Standard Unix. It can run many of the same utilities software as Linux, but uses a different kernel is licensed somewhat differently. The Linux kernel is licensed with the GNU General Public License (GPL), which insists that source code must be distributed or available for download for all derivatives of GNU copyrighted code. OpenBSD is licensed so that the code can be used by anyone for any purpose and imposes only simple uniform requirements for maintaining copyright notices in redistributed versions crediting the originator of the material only in advertising. (3) FreeBSD is another variant of Berkeley Standard Unix that may include GPL licensed code. OpenBSD FreeBSD are not often used for desktop computing but are considered particularly secure reliable, so some users prefer them for server applications. Linux shares common roots with the BSD family of operating systems. Many utilities in these two systems are similar, many applications can be compiled or installed to run on either one of the BSD variants or on Linux. The libraries of the Crawford County Federated Library System use OpenBSD for some server applications, including running the LTSP server software. …
Referência(s)