Comparing and Contrasting Web Services and Open Source

Abstract

Software can either be developed in a way such that the source code is available to others, open source, or such that it is not, closed source. Open source software has a number of architectural advantages over traditionally developed closed-source software including modularity, a frequent release pattern and a strong culture of reuse. As there has been a shift away from developing software that runs locally to a model where service based computing and web services are some of the most important software used on a daily basis by people, there has been a shift away from developing such software as open source. This thesis looks at a comparison between open source and web services and shows how they compare on some of the aspects which are the most important architectural advantages of open source. This examination is based on a look at literature and specific web services. Through this examination, it shows that many of the benefits of open source can be found as a result of other architectural characteristics of web services.