Open-source Software for a Better Internet Experience

January 7, 2022

Many of us are familiar with using commercial, or licensed, software and hardware. However, the open-source model is based on an entirely different principle. It’s all about sharing common goods so that the community can benefit from them. The licensing of open source software is intended to be regulated by social norms rather than law.

The term “open source” refers to the software that may be modified and shared by anyone. It functions within a specific approach oriented towards collaboration and transparency. Good examples of successful open source software solutions are Linux (an operating system) and React (a JavaScript library). They both have active developer communities and offer high-quality software solutions. These offerings are widely appreciated by the developers.

Open source software is usually a free product. Developers (and the general public) have access to the source code, and they can constantly enhance the program’s performance, add features, and fix security issues. The projects are quite often run on the Creative Commons (CC) licenses to protect the parties that are contributing to them. The most widely-adopted open-source license is GNU’s General Public License (GPL), but there are other popular licenses such as The Apache License, developed by the Apache Software Foundation, as well as Microsoft’s Microsoft Public Licenses (Ms-PL).

What are the main advantages of open source?

Reliability

Open-source software is typically created upon well-known and proven development languages such as HTML or Java. Many — if not the majority of — software projects are written in a language that itself is open-source software.

Security

Since anyone can review the code of open-source software, issues can be detected and patched very quickly. What is more, open-source products do not misuse and abuse users’ data intentionally like some proprietary software developers might. The community would immediately discover this abuse, and the reputation of the software and its owner would be greatly impacted.

Flexibility and Transparency

Open source software may be customized to specific needs. Since the source code is freely available, a developer can easily add changes to the functionality of an interface. This creates trust in what the product or software is doing. Open-source solutions and software products are typically transparent and easy to understand.

Availability

Anyone can download and use open-source software free of charge. There are no limitations regarding the user group or intended audience, purpose, frequency of use, and devices on which open-source software can be installed.

Freedom

As open source has no specific owner, no user gets locked in with long-term fees or obligations.