Open source software refers to software whose source code is
available to the public community. The community can modify and/or improve the
software’s functionality by changing the source code. Open source promotes a
very important concept to the people that use it; that concept is
collaboration. Through collaboration the community improves the software and
thus benefits the entire community not just the individual(s) that made the
changes to the source code. On the opposite side of the spectrum, close source
software is software whose source code can only be altered by its creator (i.e.
a company or author(s)). You can find more information here about open
source software.
Open source software is a great asset no matter what the
level of experience a developer has. Beginner software developer can use the
source code from open source software to learn and improve their programming
skills. For a veteran software developer, open source software is useful
because they can modify the software to fit their more advanced needs. Robin
Muilwijk reports that Andy Hunt stated in an interview how open source
is becoming more and more common in industry. Although it was referred to in
the past, using open source software has become normal (even almost expected).
That was a really good introduction about what open source software is and why they are important. I like the way you elaborate your thoughts on the benefits that open source softwares bring about to both users and contributors. The provided links are very helpful to get to know more about open source and its effects. I hope you could spend a little more time on the complications of companies that use open source software in the back-end and not making their codes available to the public. Great post!
ReplyDelete