ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of software — its nature, its development models, its licensing alternatives, its architectures, and its maturity. Thus it offers a useful perspective within which the development of a new software product can be viewed. CO-free and open source software (FOSS) is a model for developing new software. It is a particularly valuable model, both for learning about the software process and for developing an actual software product for a real client. Software is also complex in the sense that a software product can be developed using different methodologies, or “development models.” Proprietary software is that which is licensed and sold as a binary executable program to individual and corporate customers. The source code is the private property of the developer and is kept hidden from the customer. The formation of a vibrant community of users and developers incubation marks a critical stage in a CO-FOSS project’s transition from origination to maturity.
