Modernizing and Redesigning Your Digital Capabilities: Open Source Software
Just because software is open source doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want on that code. For example, in some open-source software, you can use the source code, develop it, and hold the people who publish and write the code responsible for problems arising from the software. In some software, open-source code takes responsibility as soon as you change and use it, and you can start to be responsible for the problems and problems that may arise where you use the software. You may use and distribute some open source software for commercial purposes, and you may not do so due to licensing requirements.
Advantages of Open Source Software
- It provides the emergence of different types of software.
- Open-source software enables the development of the programmer community. In this way, it helps education, creativity, and inspiration.
- Once a vulnerability is found, it can be closed much more quickly since many more people are interested in it. However, you may have to wait for a long time for closed source software.
What is Open Source Software Operating Systems
When personal computer usage started to become popular, the most used systems as operating systems were Windows and Mac OS operating systems produced by Apple. These operating systems are sold to users for a specific license, and their source codes are confidential. However, Linux–based operating systems are open source and are available to the development of their users. Since it is open-source and free software, most Linux distributions can be used for free.
Types of Open Source Software Licenses
Licenses; are the contracts between those who develop the software and those who will use, modify, distribute, protect certain rights and limits of the software, such as the use, distribution, development of open-source software.
- MIT
It is the most widely used form of licensing in open-source software developed by MIT. The MIT license makes open-source software pretty accessible in many ways.
- LINUX
A competitor to the Windows operating system, Linux is an open-source operating system software with increasing popularity in today’s software world, very secure and with advanced features.
- APACHE
Much like the MIT license, it has all the freedoms and obligations of reference at publication. However, unlike the MIT license, the angle requires you to specify the changes you have made in the source code through the license and notify the end–user of these changes.
- GNU (GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE)
The GNU licenses are similar to the MIT and APACHE licenses in terms of the freedom of source code. You can make any change or development on the software. You may distribute the software for commercial or non-commercial purposes. But you need to be careful about this licensed software because you cannot hide the source code if you intend to spread the software for commercial purposes. It brings the obligation to transmit the source codes to the people or institutions to which you sell the software.
Benefits of Using Open Source Software
- High–Scale Software
Open-source software is high-quality software by nature. Because the source code is publicly available, the software has few bugs, constantly kept up to date by the developers.
- License Management
In open-source software, you do not need to spend a lot of effort on licensing compared to other software. You can quickly sign open-source software as per your need with any open source code licensing.
- Lower Costs
Open-source software reduces the software costs in the organization to a minimum.
- Trustworthy
Open-source software is more secure than closed–box software. You can never be sure of software security whose source code you cannot access. But you can quickly fix security vulnerabilities in software whose source code you have.
