What Is Open Source Software (OSS) and What Is Big Data?

Abstract

This chapter discusses what Open Source Software is and its relationship to Big Data and how it differs from other types of software and its software development cycle. Open source software (OSS) is a type of computer software in which source code is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to study, change, and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose. Big Data are data sets that are so voluminous and complex that traditional data processing application software are inadequate to deal with them. Big data can be discrete or a continuous stream data and is accessible using many types of computing devices ranging from supercomputers and personal workstations to mobile devices and tablets. It is discussed how fog computing can be performed with cloud computing for visualization of Big Data. This chapter also presents a summary of additional web-based Big Data visualization software.