After all said and done, a proof is only as reliable as the processes that are used to verify its correctness. The ultimate standard of proof is a formal proof, which is nothing other than an unbroken chain of logical inferences from an explicit set of axioms. While this may be the mathematical ideal of proof, actual mathematical practice generally deviates significantly from the ideal.

––Thomas Hales (2012),
Dense Sphere Packings: A Blueprint of Formal Proofs

Richard Stallman created a Unix-like operating system called GNU and released it under a license, providing certain rights for use and redistribution— an open-source license. A few years later, a graduate student at the University of Helsinki, Linus Torvalds, created another Unix-like operating system called Linux; and he too made it available for free. Both Linux and GNU are still widely available, and their evolution has spurred the creation of many other Open-Source Software (OSS) programs. OSS refers to any software that is available for free use, modification, and redistribution, provided the terms of one of many license models are followed. Open-source software, deployed throughout the world in academic, business, and government enterprises, plays an important role in those settings where large software budgets are not possible, particularly in underdeveloped countries and in non-profit organizations. There are thousands of individuals who contribute to open-source projects as volunteers on their own time, and frequently with the support of their employers, who may indirectly benefit.

Open-source software is widely used in the classroom, and many papers have been written about the use of OSS in education. And over the years, several important lines of research pertaining specifically to OSS have emerged. There are more than 250,000 open-source projects, ranging from simple academic pursuits to games, programming languages, tools, and enterprise-level applications. Questions that need to be answered by research include: Is the economic incentive to contribute to open-source projects sufficient to drive innovation at a level attractive to for-profit enterprises? Will OSS remain largely in the purview of academicians and free software proponents? What are the motives for participating in open-source communities and can these be reconciled with loyalty to company and country? Is the security and reliability proposition for OSS strong enough for commercial applications and even secure government deployment? Is the quality of OSS better, worse or the same as closed-source software? Will the for-profit companies that have sprung up around the open-source movement be able to survive and grow, or are they simply a momentary phenomenon?

Open-source software is here to stay, but its technological role remains unresolved. OSS is too important to ignore, even in the commercial software world. Stay tuned for more changes to come.

In the first paper, “Performance of a Few Gang Scheduling Algorithms for Multiprocessor Scheduling”, the authors, R Siyambalapitiya and M Sandirigama, have considered Gang Scheduling approach for multiprocessor scheduling problems. They have observed that the percentage gaps of these algorithms lie close to the optimal when the problem size ratio increases beyond 25.

M Saraswathi and V Balu, in their paper, “Preprocessing Techniques for Effective Data Extraction and Computation”, propose an effective preprocessing and dimensionality reduction technique in web text mining which helps in simplifying computations.

In the next paper, “A Division Algorithm-Based Symmetric Key Encryption Algorithm”, the author, Shriram B Patil has designed symmetric key encryption algorithm using division algorithm. The uniqueness of quotient and remainder in division algorithm satisfies the fact that enciphering and deciphering processes are inverses of each other.

Atul Kumar Pandey, Prabhat Pandey and K L Jaiswal, in their paper, “A Heart Disease Prediction Model Using Decision Tree”, have described heart disease prediction model that can assist medical professionals in predicting the heart disease status, based on the clinical data of patients. The results obtained show that fasting blood sugar is the most important attribute which gives better classification against other attributes but does not give better accuracy.

In the last paper, “Enhanced Fuzzy Image Processing Algorithm for Multi-Focus Image Fusion”, the author, Ramasamy Mariappan, has proposed fuzzy image processing based on multi-focus image fusion approach. Experimental results have been found to be better, both visually and quantitatively, for the problem of image fusion.

-- C R K Prasad
Consulting Editor