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Source Software (source + software)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Information Science and Computing	33%
Humanities and Social Sciences	16%

Kinds of Source Software

open source software

Selected Abstracts

CODE IS SPEECH: Legal Tinkering, Expertise, and Protest among Free and Open Source Software Developers

CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 3 2009
GABRIELLA COLEMAN
ABSTRACT In this essay, I examine the channels through which Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS) developers reconfigure central tenets of the liberal tradition,and the meanings of both freedom and speech,to defend against efforts to constrain their productive autonomy. I demonstrate how F/OSS developers contest and specify the meaning of liberal freedom,especially free speech,through the development of legal tools and discourses within the context of the F/OSS project. I highlight how developers concurrently tinker with technology and the law using similar skills, which transform and consolidate ethical precepts among developers. I contrast this legal pedagogy with more extraordinary legal battles over intellectual property, speech, and software. I concentrate on the arrests of two programmers, Jon Johansen and Dmitry Sklyarov, and on the protests they provoked, which unfolded between 1999 and 2003. These events are analytically significant because they dramatized and thus made visible tacit social processes. They publicized the challenge that F/OSS represents to the dominant regime of intellectual property (and clarified the democratic stakes involved) and also stabilized a rival liberal legal regime intimately connecting source code to speech. [source]

Open Source Software: Private Provision of a Public Good

JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT STRATEGY, Issue 4 2002
Justin Pappas Johnson
A simple model of open source software (as typified by the GNU-Linux operating system) is presented. Individual user-programmers decide whether to invest their own effort to develop a software enhancement that will become a public good if so developed. The effect of changing the population size of user-programmers is considered; finite and asymptotic results are given. Welfare results are presented. It is shown that whether development will increase when applications have a modular structure depends on whether the developer base exceeds a critical size. Potential explanations of several stylized facts are given, including why certain useful programs don't get written. [source]

Patent Protection of Computer-Implemented Inventions Vis-À-Vis Open Source Software

THE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 3 2006
Asunción Esteve
This article describes the different positions of the open source proponents versus the "traditional intellectual property approach" towards the so-called computer-implemented inventions. It analyses the position of both sides regarding the European Commission proposal on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions, and tries to clarify the confusion and misunderstanding that followed this proposal. The article first focuses on the reasons that could justify providing patent protection on computer-implemented inventions, in particular how the gradual growth of computer technology is having an increasing effect on the performance of inventions. Second, it examines the three main risks that the EU proposal was said, by some open source lobbies, to introduce: the overprotection of computer programs; the blocking effect in interoperability; and its negative impact on innovation and software development. The article evaluates these risks and provides reasons and arguments that show that they were overestimated. It also shows that no hard empirical data have been provided to support conclusions over the negative impact of computer-implemented inventions on innovation. Third, the article analyses if the legal provisions of the EU proposal on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions could have brought positive effects in terms of legal certainty. In this respect, the article considers that both the definition of computer-implemented invention and the criteria to evaluate the patentability of such inventions were a bit disappointing. Finally, the article considers any new legal initiative to endorse patent protection on computer-implemented inventions to be positive. [source]

A further investigation of open source software: community, co-ordination, code quality and security issues

INFORMATION SYSTEMS JOURNAL, Issue 1 2002
Article first published online: 8 FEB 200
First page of article [source]

Guest Editorial Open source software: investigating the software engineering, psychosocial and economic issues

INFORMATION SYSTEMS JOURNAL, Issue 4 2001
Article first published online: 7 JUL 200
First page of article [source]

Pinpointing users with location estimation techniques and Wi-Fi hotspot technology

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NETWORK MANAGEMENT, Issue 5 2008
Kevin Curran
Location awareness is becoming an important capability for mobile computing; however, it has not been possible until now to provide cheap pervasive positioning systems. Wide area coverage is most famously achieved by using global positioning systems (GPS). A constellation of low-orbit satellites cover the earth's surface. Unfortunately GPS does not work indoors and has limited success in big cities because of the ,urban canyon' effect. PlaceLab is a research project that attempts to solve the ubiquity issues surrounding 802.11-based location estimation. PlaceLab, like RADAR, uses a device's 802.11 interface; however, it does not require the area to be pre-calibrated. It predicts location via the known positions of the access points detected by the device. Commonly used systems have a number of drawbacks, including cost, accuracy and the ability to work indoors. PlaceLab is a piece of open source software developed by Intel Research that can pinpoint a user within a Wi-Fi network. We set out here to investigate whether PlaceLab can be used as a means of establishing a user's position. This type of investigation could, if successful, pave the way for the development of other location-based applications. This report documents the efforts to answer the above question. PlaceLab was found to work, but only in ideal locations where factors such as the number of floors and the lack of available APs did not affect its use. It was concluded that these factors prevent the system from being effective as a means of establishing a user's position in most locations on campus. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Open Source Software: Private Provision of a Public Good

Assessing the efficacy of user and developer activities in facilitating the development of OSS projects

JOURNAL OF SOFTWARE MAINTENANCE AND EVOLUTION: RESEARCH AND PRACTICE, Issue 5 2009
Hewijin Christine Jiau
Abstract Although the development of open source software (OSS) projects is known to be critically dependent on many key factors, the precise contribution of the various user and developer activities toward the development of an OSS project is unknown. Therefore, an empirical study is performed to examine the correlation between the user/developer activities and the state of development of an OSS project. It is shown that certain user/developer activities have a particular efficacy in facilitating OSS project development. The results presented in this study provide an effective approach useful in observing and evaluating the development of OSS projects. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Cluster computing for digital microscopy

MICROSCOPY RESEARCH AND TECHNIQUE, Issue 2 2004
Walter A. Carrington
Abstract Microscopy is becoming increasingly digital and dependent on computation. Some of the computational tasks in microscopy are computationally intense, such as image restoration (deconvolution), some optical calculations, image segmentation, and image analysis. Several modern microscope technologies enable the acquisition of very large data sets. 3D imaging of live cells over time, multispectral imaging, very large tiled 3D images of thick samples, or images from high throughput biology all can produce extremely large images. These large data sets place a very large burden on laboratory computer resources. This combination of computationally intensive tasks and larger data sizes can easily exceed the capability of single personal computers. The large multiprocessor computers that are the traditional technology for larger tasks are too expensive for most laboratories. An alternative approach is to use a number of inexpensive personal computers as a cluster; that is, use multiple networked computers programmed to run the problem in parallel on all the computers in the cluster. By the use of relatively inexpensive over-the-counter hardware and open source software, this approach can be much more cost effective for many tasks. We discuss the different computer architectures available, and their advantages and disadvantages. Microsc. Res. Tech. 64:204,213, 2004. © 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

What to Do about Missing Values in Time-Series Cross-Section Data

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, Issue 2 2010
James Honaker
Applications of modern methods for analyzing data with missing values, based primarily on multiple imputation, have in the last half-decade become common in American politics and political behavior. Scholars in this subset of political science have thus increasingly avoided the biases and inefficiencies caused by ad hoc methods like listwise deletion and best guess imputation. However, researchers in much of comparative politics and international relations, and others with similar data, have been unable to do the same because the best available imputation methods work poorly with the time-series cross-section data structures common in these fields. We attempt to rectify this situation with three related developments. First, we build a multiple imputation model that allows smooth time trends, shifts across cross-sectional units, and correlations over time and space, resulting in far more accurate imputations. Second, we enable analysts to incorporate knowledge from area studies experts via priors on individual missing cell values, rather than on difficult-to-interpret model parameters. Third, because these tasks could not be accomplished within existing imputation algorithms, in that they cannot handle as many variables as needed even in the simpler cross-sectional data for which they were designed, we also develop a new algorithm that substantially expands the range of computationally feasible data types and sizes for which multiple imputation can be used. These developments also make it possible to implement the methods introduced here in freely available open source software that is considerably more reliable than existing algorithms. [source]

The Information and Communication Technologies and Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights: A Relationship Perspective

THE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 2 2008
P. M. Rao
Intellectual capital represents an increasingly important area in the world economy. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have played an essential role in the globalization of the economy. The protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs) is an essential factor in international economic affairs. This article discusses the legal issues concerning proprietary and open software licensing and suggests alternatives to legally enforcing IPRs. Global technology networking and outsourcing have involved the use of open source software (OSS), and have implications for the enforcement of IPRs. Propriety and OSS licensing are analyzed in this article. Companies may adopt alternative strategies to the strict enforcement of IPRs. A relationship view of IPRs is presented, a perspective that adopts relationship marketing as a means of gaining profits from IPRs in the ICT sector. By establishing a relationship to customers, software producers may gain customer loyalty and commitment from users of their software and, in the long run, retain a position as a chosen supplier of software. [source]

A non-parametric approach to software reliability

APPLIED STOCHASTIC MODELS IN BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY, Issue 1 2004
Axel Gandy
Abstract In this paper we present a new, non-parametric approach to software reliability. It is based on a multivariate counting process with additive intensity, incorporating covariates and including several projects in one model. Furthermore, we present ways to obtain failure data from the development of open source software. We analyse a data set from this source and consider several choices of covariates. We are able to observe a different impact of recently added and older source code onto the failure intensity. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]