What is open source

What is Open Source
Open source – the term has been the centre stage of a David
vs Goliath fight in the software community. Be it Windows vs
other operating systems, or Internet Explorer vs Mozilla; and
now more recently, or more recently Microsoft vs Google. open
source has been the rallying point of the so called ‘resistance’
to the proprietary regime. For developers within the software
community, open source has transcended the role of a mere
development methodology into a core life philosophy. Today,
we hear of not just open
source software, but also
open source hardware,
open source biotechnology,
even open source politics!
Open source is a
methodology or approach
towards the design and
development of software
with the intention of giving
the user access to the
source code; i.e. if you use
open source software, not
only will you be able to use
it, you will also be able to see how it works, debug it, modify it
and redistribute it.
To elaborate and make the difference more clear, imagine the
simplest entry level C++ programme, the one that says “hello
world.”
If the program was proprietary (non open source), you
would merely have access to the EXE file that upon execution
would give a window with “hello world” written in it.
However, if the program is open source, you will also be
given access to the code that the EXE file is compiled from,
namely
#include
void main()
{ cout<<”hello worl Hence, not only will you be able to use this programme for the pleasure of hearing a “hello world” from your computer, you will be able to modify this code to allow it to say more than just that. This example of course, was overly simplistic. Even if the programme had been proprietary, anyone could recreate it making it immaterial whether it was open source or not. However, in today’s era of programmes that run up to tens of thousands of lines of code, with complex algorithms and databases forming an integral part of the system, it is impossible to recreate the code from observing how a program functions. Here, open source makes all the difference. The Open Source Initiative, an organisation committed to promoting open source uses the open source definition in order to determine if a software is open source or not. This definition, among other things specifies requirements of the licence such as preventing discrimination against any persons or groups and preventing discrimination against fields of endeavour. One must not forget that there is a core difference between open source and free software. While they both embody the same core idea, the former still allows the commercial utilisation of the code with the motive of profit. Many companies such as Red Hat gain significant revenues from sale, distribution, maintenance and consultancy services provided on open source software.