What is Open
Source Software
Open source
software is generally free software that you can use in your business. Open
source developers choose to make the source code of their software publicly
available for the good of the community and to publish their software with an
open source license – meaning that other developers can see how it works and
add to it. Examples of open source products include Open Office, the internet
browser Mozilla Firefox, Wikipedia, the GNU/Linux operating system and its
derivative Android, an operating system for mobile devices.
Generically, open source
refers to a program in which the source code is available to the general public
for use and/or modification from its original design free of charge, i.e., open. Open source code is
typically created as a collaborative effort in which programmers improve upon
the code and share the changes within the community. Open source sprouted in
the technological community as a response to proprietary software owned by
corporations.
Working of
Open Source Software
From a business
user perspective, open source software works in much the same way as
proprietary software systems provided by commercial software firms – the only
difference being that generally you don’t pay for it. However there are a few
important differences – the idea behind open source software is that users are
effectively co-developers, suggesting ways to improve it and helping to hunt
out bugs and problems. This means that if you wish, you can modify it to your
own needs, port it to new operating systems and share it with others.
A certification standard issued
by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) that indicates that the source code of a
computer program is made available free of charge to the general public. The
rationale for this movement is that a larger group of programmers not concerned
with proprietary ownership or financial gain will produce a more useful and bug -free product for
everyone to use. The concept relies on peer review to find and eliminate bugs
in the program code, a process which commercially developed and packaged
programs do not utilize. Programmers on the Internet read, redistribute and
modify the source code, forcing an expedient evolution of the product. The
process of eliminating bugs and improving the software happens at a much
quicker rate than through the traditional development channels of commercial
software as the information is shared throughout the open source community and
does not originate and channel through a corporation's research and development
cogs.
Advantages
of open source software
1. It’s generally free – it has been
estimated that open source software collectively saves businesses $60 billion a
year. These days for virtually every paid for proprietary software system you
will find an open source version.
2. It’s continually evolving in real time
as developers add to it and modify it, which means it can be better quality and
more secure and less prone to bugs than proprietary systems, because it has so
many users poring over it and weeding out problems.
3. Using open source software also means
you are not locked in to using a particular vendor’s system that only work with
their other systems.
4. You can modify and adapt open source
software for your own business requirements, something that is not possible
with proprietary systems.
Disadvantages
1. Because there is no requirement to
create a commercial product that will sell and generate money, open source
software can tend to evolve more in line with developers’ wishes than the needs
of the end user.
2. For the same reason, they can be less
“user-friendly” and not as easy to use because less attention is paid to
developing the user interface.
3. There may also be less support available
for when things go wrong – open source software tends to rely on its community
of users to respond to and fix problems.
4. Although the open source software itself
is mostly free, there may still be some indirect costs involved, such as paying
for external support.
5. Although having an open system means
that there are many people identifying bugs and fixing them, it also means that
malicious users can potentially view it and exploit any vulnerabilities.
Things to
consider
Because of the way it has been developed,
open source software can require more technical know-how than commercial
proprietary systems, so you may need to put time and effort into training
employees to the level required to use it.
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