7. The definition…
Open source software is
software whose source code is
available for modification or
enhancement by anyone.
- OpenSource.com
Open-source software (OSS)
is computer software with
its source code made available
with a license in which
the copyright holder provides
the rights to study, change, and
distribute the software to
anyone and for any purpose.
- Wikipedia
12. "Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that
attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything
it touches. That's the way that the license works."
- Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft, June 2001
28. What it means to be a contributor
Planning Events
Writing documentation
Design and Art
Organising
Coding
Help and mentor people
Open Source is way beyond software
29. 28% of casual contributions to open
source are documentation, such as a
typo fix, reformatting, or writing a
translation.
-- Christos Matskas, random person
http://www.igor.pro.br/publica/papers/saner2016.pdf
30. Structure of OSS projects
Author Owner Maintainer Contributor Community
Members
39. Contributor checklist
Learn how to use Git
Find a project that you like / don’t like(?)
Check issues, bugs, PRs and discussions
Raise an Issue or bug
Abide to the rules and guidelines
Be patient and open to ideas and feedback
Ask for help if you get stuck
The gist of it is that OSS is free and available for modification and distribution. You can use, copy and change the code as you see fit.
One important thing to note, however, is that there are different OSS licences so you need to make sure that the code you wish to alter has the right licence attached to it.
Even big software companies today actively support and contribute to OSS. Companies that in the past were so against Open Source!