Comparing and Contrasting Web Services and Open Source

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.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2010

Author dc:creator

• Katz, Jeremy Lee

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Michael Cusumano.

• Engineering Systems Division.
• System Design and Management Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/59251

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/59251