Resources

Primary Source Documents

The MIT License¹

The MIT license remains at the top of the popular open source licenses list, at 66%.²

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Widely used open-source software

Main article: List of free and open-source software packages

Open source software projects are built and maintained by a network of volunteer programmers and are widely used in free as well as commercial products.[36] Prime examples of open-source products are the Apache HTTP Server, the e-commerce platform osCommerce, internet browsers Mozilla Firefox and Chromium(the project where the vast majority of development of the freeware Google Chrome is done) and the full office suite LibreOffice. One of the most successful open-source products is the GNU/Linux operating system, an open-source Unix-likeoperating system, and its derivative Android, an operating system for mobile devices.[87][88] In some industries, open source software is the norm.[89]

Linux

Linux is the leading operating system on servers and other big iron systems such as mainframe computers, and the only OS used on TOP500 supercomputers (since November 2017, having gradually eliminated all competitors).[21][22][23] It is used by around 2.3 percent of desktop computers.[24][25] The Chromebook, which runs the Linux kernel-based Chrome OS, dominates the US K–12 education market and represents nearly 20 percent of sub-$300 notebook sales in the US.[26]

Linux also runs on embedded systems, i.e. devices whose operating system is typically built into the firmware and is highly tailored to the system. This includes routers, automationcontrols, televisions,[27][28] digital video recorders, video game consoles, and smartwatches.[29] Many smartphones and tablet computers run Android and other Linux derivatives.[30] Because of the dominance of Android on smartphones, Linux has the largest installed base of all general-purpose operating systems.[31]

Android

Android has been the best-selling OS worldwide on smartphones since 2011 and on tablets since 2013. As of May 2017, it has over two billion monthly active users, the largest installed base of any operating system, and as of December 2018, the Google Play store features over 2.6 million apps.[11]

Global market share held by the leading smartphone operating systems in sales to end users from 1st quarter 2009 to 2nd quarter 2018³

Summary:

Introduced by Google in 2007, Android is the most popular smartphone operating system in the world as of 2016. Since its release, sales of smartphones running on the Android have grown strongly over the years. In 2009, 6.8 million Android smartphones were sold. By 2015, this figure had risen to more than 1.16 billion. Android accounted for around 85 percent of all smartphone sales to end users worldwide in the beginning of 2016.

LibreOffice

The LibreOffice suite comprises programs for word processing, the creation and editing of spreadsheets, slideshows, diagrams and drawings, working with databases, and composing mathematical formulae. It is available in 115 languages.[9]

Between January 2011 (the first stable release) and October 2011, LibreOffice was downloaded approximately 7.5 million times.[21] The project claims 120 million unique downloading addresses from May 2011 to May 2015, excluding Linux distributions, with 55 million of those being from May 2014 to May 2015.[22]

International OpenOffice market shares⁴

Many of the leading countries have switched to OpenOffice (or the ODF file format) in their public administration, education system or in several municipal governments. (Examples from Denmark, Germany, Spain, full list at Openoffice.org)

Summary: OpenOffice was popular among many European nations.

Apache HTTP Server

In 2009, it became the first web server software to serve more than 100 million websites.[10]As of August 2018, it was estimated to serve 39% of all active websites and 35% of the top million websites.[11]

Usage of web servers broken down by ranking⁵

1557185142500

Summary:

Almost all top web servers are open source or supports an open source version like Apache, Nginx, and LiteSpeed.

Google Chrome (backed by open source Chromium)

Chrome worldwide browser market share: 63.16% in April 2019⁶

StatCounter-browser-ww-monthly-200901-201707

Chrome North American browser market share: 50.59% in April 2019

StatCounter-browser-US-monthly-200901-201707

Creative Commons

Partners

Wikipedia

Wikipedia migrated its licensing structure from the GNU Free Documentation License to a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. The world’s largest and most cited collaborative encyclopedia made this move via a community vote and for good reason. By changing to a CC BY-SA license, Wikipedia (and the entire collection of Wikimedia sites) allows content to legally flow in and out of the site with ease, enabling one of the great cultural resources of the digital revolution to legally interact with an endless array of similar cultural institutions.

flickr

Flickr was one of the first major online communities to incorporate Creative Commons licensing options into its user interface, giving photographers around the world the easy ability to share photos on terms of their choosing. As the Flickr community grew, so did the number of CC-licensed images — currently there are well over 100 million on the site — establishing Flickr as the Web’s single largest source of CC-licensed content. Flickr’s services have grown to include a CC image portal and advanced CC search features, making the site one of world’s most useful resources for discovering creativity that is available for free and legal sharing, use, and remixing.

Statistics of medias licensed under Creative Commons⁷

(As of May 2019)

Logo	License Name	Number of photos
	Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License	46,137,208
	Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License	9,970,001
	Attribution-NoDerivs License	54,706,869
	Attribution-NonCommercial License	24,843,285
	Attribution-ShareAlike License	21,849,713
	Attribution License	36,701,002
	Public Domain Dedication (CC0)	1,495,942
	Public Domain Mark	3,743,932
		Total: 199,447,952