There are a lot of things that require money. If we wanted to make something, then we would have to buy the necessary tools. As a college student, I have to save as much money as possible whenever I can so I don't have a lot of debt. The average college student uses the computer almost everyday. They also have to use programs that cost a lot of money such as
Microsoft Office and
Adobe Photoshop. There are also alternatives to these program that are not just free, but you can also learn
from it, alter it, and share it such as
LibreOffice and
GNU Image Manipulation Program. These types of programs are called "open source" programs.
Open source, by definition, is "a development model promotes universal access via free license
to a product's design or blueprint, and universal redistribution of
that design or blueprint, including subsequent improvements to it by
anyone." It's basically a computer program that has its
source code available to the general public that is useable and modifiable.
It's good to have these open source programs because, of course, it's free, and also because many other programmers can
modify the code and send it to the creator, which drastically improves the program. It is the same as volunteering to do good in some way to benefit the community.
You don't have to be a programmer to be able to use these open source programs. The more people that use these programs, the better because it allows the developers to know that people actually use the program, other programmers will try to improve it, and it allows others with money issues to do their work.
Open source programs sound too good to be true. Don't worry. It's true.
Hi Ryan. I think your points on the usability of open-source software are awesome. A lot of people use that kind of software nowadays without even realizing it. For instance, Android has been open-sourced, which has allowed the general community to either modify parts to their liking or take other parts for their own use. The same can be said for the Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox web browsers. On one hand, many average people can benefit from the large effort that many people put in to making sure the software is polished. Meanwhile on the other hand, programmers can utilize open-source code for learning purposes, volunteer work, etc.
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I always appreciate it when source code is always open source. Coding is one of the greatest and most powerful tools out there and it is a shame that some developers choose to have their code as closed source. However it is understandable that developers do choose to go closed source - that is in the business sense. But I prefer to look at code as a tool that allows for great innovation and creativity that can be unlocked, therefore I am a great support of open source. As for closed source, what can you do? It is a shame.
ReplyDeleteBut great article Ryan!
Hi Ryan, I whole wholeheartedly agree with you view on open source software. I also believe that open source is a great way for people to get and utilized software without having to pay the premium that most software packages come with. I also enjoy that anyone can look through the source code and possibly contribute to a project. I think one of the great benefits of creating an open source project is that you get a lot of feedback from the community and can even learn quite a bit from having others review your code.
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