Open source software (OSS) is both a philosophy and a process. As a philosophy it describes the intended use of software and methods for its distribution. Depending on your perspective, the concept of OSS is a relatively new idea being only five or ten years old. On the other hand, the GNU Software Project — a project advocating the distribution of “free” software — has been operational since the mid ‘80’s. Consequently, the ideas behind OSS have been around longer than you may think. When people think about OSS they often think about “free”, but the term “free” should be equated with freedom, and as such people who use “free” software should be:
1. free to run the software for any purpose
2. free to modify the software to suit their needs
3. free to redistribute of the software gratis or for a fee
4. free to distribute modified versions of the software
Put another way the term “free” should be equated with the Latin word “liberat” meaning to liberate, and not necessarily “gratis” meaning without return made or expected. In the words of Richard Stallman, we should “think of ‘free’ as in ‘free speech,’ not as in ‘free beer.’”

Activity - Writing and reading MARC
In this first activity you will write, read, and download sets of MARC records. Through the process you will learn about MARC as a data structure, become familiar with an open source “toolbox” for manipulating MARC data as well as means of acquiring MARC data from remote servers using other sets of open source software.

Download pdf Open Source Software and XML