Review of Open Source Initiative (OSI) Website

Resource: http://www.opensource.org/

This website is created by Open Source Initiative (OSI) which is a nonprofit organization to manage and promote open source software. The website gives readers a detailed definition of 'open source'. Open source software is free to distribute. There are some limiting conditions, they all must operate under license. It lists various open source licenses, such as 'GNU Library or Lesser General Public License (LGPL)'. It also provides some links to other resources, such as: rich references, books, open source software. Those links contains good tutorial materials for people to understand and review open source as applied in the various organizations including libraries. The website contains a good overview of the history and structures of OSI. It lists all the events concerning open source all over the world, gives news about open source applied at various organizations, and posts recent blogs about open source. The website also has Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) to allow the user ask the questions. The website provides some projects and initiatives which improve the quality of open source models both for developers and users, and for the public sector. Although this website doesn't directly show the information about open source movement in the library market, it gives some links about open source software in libraries and stories about the open source movement in libraries. This website is good for people to understand, and research the fundamental information of open source software. It is a good starting point to get involved with the open source software.