Greetings to my fellow Icrontians and fellow travelers.

What is open source software, you ask? Well, there is actually a very explicit definition and set of guidelines concerning that matter, but in general: open source software is software that is released either as complete source code or as a compiled executable with accompanying source code. In either case, the source code must be freely licensed for either personal or commercial use to whomever may wish to use it for whatever purpose they may wish to use it for. Anything less than this is not truly open source.

It is the freest, purest expression of software development, plain and simple.

Basically, open source means, "Look and touch," rather than, "Look but do not touch."

So with the definition out of the way...

This blog posting is meant to accompany my coming series of articles concerning open source software. The working title for this series is Open Source Evangelism (OSE), because truly I am a proponent of the Open Source Initiative and I wish to see the use of open source software and the communities that support it grow and flourish.

That being said, I want to make it very clear that I am not an open source zealot. I fully acknowledge that some open source titles are simply not ready for mainstream adoption, and far be it from me to recommend that someone use an open source software title that will ultimately fail to meet their needs and leave them with a bitter taste in their mouth. Experiences like these tend to hurt the open source initiative rather than help it.

No, my friends, it is my singular goal to aid the open source initiative by providing honest reviews, opinions and recommendations of widely available open source software titles, even if that means recommending that you all steer clear of a particular release for whatever reason.

You may be wondering what all this has to do with you. After all, I addressed this blog entry to YOU directly!

Well, if you've read this far then that is awesome. What I ask from YOU is that YOU do your part to promote open software policies.

If I recommend an open source software title that you love, tell your friends.

If I recommend an open source software title that sucks, tell me so that I can take your opinion into consideration and provide better guidance in the future.

If you share my passion for open source software and you want to contribute, then I would invite any and all of you to write your own articles for the Open Source Evangelism series. To this end, you can use my existing articles as a basis for your own, or reinvent the format to fit your article. That is the beauty of Open Engineering.

There are two guidelines for this project that I want to establish:
- All Open Source Evangelism pieces should use the same title format, which is currently Open Source Evangelism: A short description with no trailing stop (.).
- All Open Source Evangelism pieces should be posted as full-fledged articles on Icrontic. Any blog entries concerning open source should not be presented as OSE articles so as to avoid confusion, although I encourage anyone interested to blog about open source along with me.

If you are uncomfortable self-publishing, please do not hesitate to send me suggestions for articles or rough drafts of articles for open source software that you would like to see under the spotlight of the series. Your contributions will be credited and appreciated by many.

So without further ado, the first article in the series has been written and is currently pending review by the editorial staff. It is titled Open Source Evangelism: Instant messaging. Got Pidgin?

Much love, Icrontic,

Rob Goerss
Open Source Evangelist