Free Stuff for Your Computer

PurposeThis paper aims to present a novel DSpace-based medical image repository system planned explicitly for storing and retrieving clinical images using digital imaging and communication in medicine (DICOM) metadata standards. DSpace institutional repository software is widely used in an academic environment for accessing and mainly storing text-related files. DICOM images are particular types of images embedded with much system-generated metadata and organised using DICOM metadata standards.Design/methodology/approachThe present paper talks about institutional repository software (DSpace) in archiving DICOM images. In the current study, the authors have tried to integrate the DICOM metadata standard with DSpace, which was compatible with Dublin Core (DC) and open archives initiative – protocol for metadata harvesting (OAI-PMH). After combining the DICOM standard with DSpace and the repository tested with a sample of 5,000 images, the retrieval results using various DICOM tags was very satisfactory. This study paves for the use of open source software (OSS) in storing and retrieving medical images.FindingsThe author has provided the DSpace software to recognised DICOM (.dcm) files in the first stage. In the second stage, a patch was developed to identify the DICOM metadata standard in Dspace, which has inbuilt DC metadata standards. Finally, in the third stage, retrieval efficiency was tested with a 5,000 .dcm image using the DICOM tag and the results were very fruitful.Research limitations/implicationsA major limitation of this study was the size of the data (5,000 DICOM images) with which the authors have tested the system. The system scalability has to be tested on various fronts like on cloud and local servers with different configurations, for which a separate study has to be done.Practical implicationsOnce this system is in place, DICOM users can stock, retrieve and access the image from the Web platform. Furthermore, this proposed repository will be the warehouse of various DICOM images with reasonable storage costs.Originality/valueIn addition to exploring the opportunities of free open source software (FOSS) implementation in medical science, this study includes issues related to the performance of an open-source repository for retrieving and preserving medical images. It created and developed Open Source DICOM Medical Image Library with DICOM metadata standard with the help of DSpace. Thus, the study will generate value for library professionals and medical professionals and FOSS vendors to understand the medical market in the context of FOSS.

This paper investigates competition between open source and proprietary software. Open source software is divided into two types: free open source and commercial open source. Free open source software can be available from the not-for-profit community, and Commercial open source software is software product based on free open source software. The usability of both free and commercial open source software is assumed to be inferior to proprietary software. It finds that: (i) when commercial open source vendor faces competition from proprietary software and free open source software, it may still be able to obtain profits; (ii) commercial open source vendor's pricing (resp. share or profit) may still be much lower (resp. less) than that of proprietary vendor even if its software functionality is not inferior to proprietary software; (iii) commercial open source vendor's pricing and profit may not increase as its software usability increases; (iv) proprietary software's price decreases with the usability of commercial open source software. Index Terms—proprietary software, open source software, price competition, software features, software usability

Reviewed by: For Fun and Profit: A History of the Free and Open Source Software Revolution by Christopher J. Tozzi Mark Priestley (bio) For Fun and Profit: A History of the Free and Open Source Software Revolution. By Christopher J. Tozzi. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017. Pp. 336. Hardcover $30. The term "free and open source software" (FOSS) does not primarily refer to software written for a specific application or to a particular approach to software production, but rather to the manner of its distribution. Typically, FOSS can be used, modified, and redistributed without the hindrance of, or payment to, its original authors. "Free" signifies liberty as well as the absence of cost, and "open source" means that the secrets of the software's code are exposed. [End Page 655] There has always been free software. Electronic computers were originally sold without software and users collaborated to exchange information and code, as the name of the 1950s IBM user group SHARE suggests. Software soon became commercialized, of course, but traditions of openness persisted, notably in universities. In the 1980s, largely due to the activities of MIT programmer Richard Stallman, a discourse of "free software" emerged in opposition to the perceived commercialization of hitherto widely available code, in particular the Unix operating system developed at Bell Labs. By the turn of the millennium, FOSS developers had created the GNU/Linux operating system and several other significant products. FOSS is now a crucial part of the networked world, providing both software—for example web servers, desktop environments, and the FOSS-derived Android operating system that powers the majority of the world's mobile phones—and many of the programming languages in which that software is written. Tozzi describes this transformation as a "revolution" and uses this metaphor to structure his book. However, he does not mention Thomas Kuhn's 1962 classic The Structure of Scientific Revolutions or the voluminous literature inspired by it. Instead, the book uses a high-level schema derived from reflection on historical revolutions to structure the story of FOSS. For example, a chapter entitled "the Moderate FOSS Revolution" is associated with Louis XVI's acceptance of a constitutional monarchy in France in 1789 and the period between the March and October 1917 revolutions in Russia, with Tozzi commenting that "it is generally during the moderate stage that the most productive and enduring revolutionary changes arise" (p. 163). The use of this structuring device seems rather artificial and does not add much insight to the story of FOSS. Tozzi begins his story with Unix, a system he describes as embodying much of the ethos of "hacker culture". He draws on Stephen Levy's book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (Doubleday, 1984) to flesh out this rather vague notion, and in many ways Tozzi's book reads as an extension of Levy's narrative to the history of FOSS. A "crisis" in this culture (the word is not used in Kuhn's sense) caused by the attempted commercialization of Unix led uber-hacker Stallman to propose the term "free software" and to start an attempt to create a "free" version of Unix. In one crucial respect (the production of the so-called "kernel" of the system) this effort stalled, and only the efforts of a project initiated in 1991 by Finnish student Linus Torvalds enabled the production of a complete operating system, usually simply called Linux. The heroic exploits of Stallman and Torvalds are recounted in a chapter each and the book then follows the revolutionary script by describing, after the stage of moderate revolution, a period of "revolutionary war" characterized by infighting between proponents of different ideological approaches to FOSS and also between FOSS advocates and Microsoft. A final chapter surveys the successes of FOSS in the years since 2000. [End Page 656] Tozzi provides a lively and entertaining account of these developments, but much of the story is available in popular and journalistic accounts, and readers may be left feeling that an opportunity to dig deeper has been missed. Anxious to prevent the commercial capture of free software, FOSS developers have proposed a bewildering variety of licenses under which it can be distributed, and while Tozzi describes...

Açık Kaynak ve Özgür Yazılımlar verimlilik, kullanılabilirlik, güvenlik, tasarruf, girişimcilik ve daha birçok açısından oldukça önemlidir. Bu çalışma, açık kaynak ve özgür yazılım başlığı altındadı “özgür yazılım”, “açık kaynak yazılım” ve “açık kaynak donanım” kavramları ile ilgili farklı yazarlar tarafından elde edilen çalışmaların incelemesini sunmaktadır. Bu sayede çalışmalar hakkında okuyucuya özet bilgiler sunarak konu ile ilgili okuyucunun ön bilgilenmesini sağmak ve gerekli olan yol haritasını ortaya koymayı hedeflemektedir. Bu çalışmada, genel olarak “Eğitim”, “Sağlık”, “Bilişim-Teknoloji” ve “Endüstri” alanındaki yayınlar üzerine yoğunlaşılmıştır.

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

How Free Became Open and Everything Else under the Sun

Open Content Communities

Technology plays a crucial role in the management of natural resources in agricultural production. Free and open-source software and sensor technology solutions have the potential to promote more sustainable agricultural production. The goal of this rapid review is to find exclusively free and open-source software for precision agriculture, available in different electronic databases, with emphasis on their characteristics and application formats, aiming at promoting sustainable agricultural production. A thorough search of the Google Scholar, GitHub, and GitLab electronic databases was performed for this purpose. Studies reporting and/or repositories containing up-to-date software were considered for this review. The various software packages were evaluated based on their characteristics and application formats. The search identified a total of 21 free and open-source software packages designed specifically for precision agriculture. Most of the identified software was shown to be extensible and customizable, while taking into account factors such as transparency, speed, and security, although some limitations were observed in terms of repository management and source control. This rapid review suggests that free and open-source software and sensor technology solutions play an important role in the management of natural resources in sustainable agricultural production, and highlights the main technological approaches towards this goal. Finally, while this review performs a preliminary assessment of existing free and open source solutions, additional research is needed to evaluate their effectiveness and usability in different scenarios, as well as their relevance in terms of environmental and economic impact on agricultural production.

Methodology for Public Administrators for selecting between open source and proprietary software

Purpose This paper aims to provide image repository to the medical professional in an open source platform, which will increase the visibility of Digital Imaging and Communication in Medicine (DICOM) image in a network mode; further, the proposed system will reduce the storage cost of the images to significant level. Design/methodology/approach The authors have developed a new institutional repository model for the medical professionals cum radiologists to preserve, store and retrieve medical images from one database with the help of open source software. The authors used JavaScript programming to integrate and develop the DICOM Standard with DSpace. Findings Major outcome of this work is that DICOM images can be accommodated in DSpace without modifying the image properties and keeping intact the various dimensions of image viewing options. Further, it was found that the images are retrieved without any ease because of the robust indexing system. Research limitations/implications Major limitation of this study was the size of the data (5000 DICOM image) with which the authors have tested the system. The scalability of the system has to be tested on various fronts, for which separate study has to be done. Practical implications Once this system is in place, DICOM user can store, retrieve and access the image from Web platform. This proposed repository will be the storehouse of various DICOM images with reasonable storage costs. Originality/value In addition to exploring the opportunities of open source software (OSS) implementation in Medical Fields, this study includes issues related to implementation of open source repository for storing and preserving medical image. This is the first time in Library Science field to create and develop Open Source DICOM Medical Image Library with the help of DSpace. The study will create value for library professionals as well as medical professionals and OSS vendors to understand the medical market in the context of OSS.

The Move to the Middle: Convergence of the Open-Source and Proprietary Software Industries

DICOM router: An open source toolbox for communication and correction of DICOM objects 1

Open-source software abbreviated as OSS is computer software that is available with source code and is provided under a software license that permits users to study, change, and improve the software. For the commercial software the source code and certain other rights are normally reserved for copyright holders,i.e. the company who developes the software. A group of people in a collaborative manner often developes the Open source software, not under the roof of a large organization. This strategy makes open source software cheap, reliable and modifiable if needed. In this context we shall discuss mainly the features of Open Source Software, differences of open source and free software and open source software movement in Indian perspective.

This book contains papers presented at the first Open Source Geospatial Research Symposium held in Nantes City, France, 8-10 July, 2009. It brings together insights and ideas in the fields of Geospatial Information and Geoinformatics. It demonstrates the scientific community dynamism related to open source and free software as well as in defining new concepts, standards or tools.

The Linux distributor Red Hat (acquired by IBM in 2018) makes a lot of money from free software, raking in more profit than its competitor Canonical from the more popular Ubuntu distribution. Ideologically it either conflates free software and open source software, or only speaks about open source and the open source community. The business model depends on four out of five business strategies for Free and open source software (FOSS), taking advantage of the various exceptions and the network loophole in the General Public License (GPL) that allow for several forms of hybrid mixes of open and enclosed software. Additionally, the company’s appropriation of the copyright to the collective work of the Linux distribution from the community is not carried out in the interests of the community, but in the interest of its shareholders and to facilitate the use of trademark law to partially enclose its products. Finally, a potentially open and horizontal community, the Fedora project, which could have distributed the freedoms to act in effective and thereby democratic forms, coordinated by a non-profit foundation, is legally and organizationally subsumed under a hierarchical business structure, through the Fedora Project Council that is legally controlled by Red Hat.