We all at some point of time in life must have heard the term Open Source. It’s a term that dates back to the 1980’s. This term in its loose sense relates to each and every thing that’s available to everyone for free along with the blueprints. Thus one can easily modify or build things as it is from the blueprint without having to pay anything for it. In this article we will focus on this term relating to the world of software as well as its benefits to the common masses.
What is Open Source Software?
As explained earlier in context of broader sense, this term in the software field also means the same. Let’s see what and how exactly this term is used in the field of software. This term essentially describes any software that is available for free along with the source-code. Yes, you guessed it right all those software that you get for free on the internet are not all open-source software rather most of them are simply free-ware software. Open source software will always be available with its source code so that one can modify and use it as per his/her own will. An example of open source software is the Android project.
Who owns open source software?
In one word, I’ll say everyone. Yes! Everyone owns the open source software because you can do whatever you’d like to do with it. Be it modifying it or redistributing it with minor changes and customizations. When it comes to responsibility of developing it, the entire developer community dedicated to it is responsible. Let’s again take the example of Google’s Android project. The project was initiated and initially developed by Google but just because it was open source it can be edited by anyone and the changes be committed to the change log (known as committing the changes to the repository). Also anyone can take it and modify it and use it as per his/her requirements. This is the reason we can see so many variants and so much of skinning by various mobile handset manufacturers.
All the software that’s distributed as open source software is essentially licensed under certain rules and regulations that were developed by the various companies prominent among them are GNU’s GPL license, Apache Software Foundation’s open source licensing, BSD license and MIT license. Getting into the details of these licensing policies will entirely shift us off the topic and is entitled for a later date full length article!
How is open source software beneficial?
Open source software is beneficial to both individuals and companies. Also this is beneficial to educational and other institutions, the major benefit being the evasion of licensing cost. When a company or institute or individual wants to use some software they generally have to pay a hefty amount as licensing fee. This fee could be easily saved by using open source alternatives to the required software. For the ease of understanding I’ll list down all the benefits.
- No Cost associated:
As the open source software is generally free, it will save you money. For example you are planning on installing a few new computers in your office or for that matter your home you will need an operating system (OS). If you plan on purchasing Microsoft Windows 8 you’ll have to pay around Rs. 3000 to 5000 per copy that you want to install, if you don’t then you are pirating the software. Instead if you install a Linux(all Linux based OS’s are generally free) based distribution you’ll be saving a lot of money.
- More Security:
Open source software generally tends to be more secure than their paid counter parts. This is because a huge developer community is developing it and as it is said the more number of eyes the better it is. Hence the flaws and security loopholes are found much faster than the closed sourced ones. Also most of the open source software is easily modifiable hence you can configure the security as you need.
- Hardware Support:
Most of the old hardware is supported by the open source software. Thus when you are trying to put to use an old computer it will be very easy for you. Literally you’ll face little to no hassle in setting up or getting support for the old hardware.
Though the benefits of open source software are many, the negative points are equally necessary to be considered. Though the open source software is free and the source code is available easily getting support for most of the open source software, which is not backed up by some big company like Google, will be problematic for a novice user. This shouldn’t stop you from using these open source software as most of the time you’ll never need to modify the source code or any major thing to put it to use. So friends switch to open source software alternatives where ever possible and save money and add to security.
Do let me know your comments on this topic in the comments section below. Also feel free to contact us in case you have any kind of queries.
– Anish Kumar
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