What is Open Source Software? Advantages of Open Software? Some reasons why open source software’s might be good for your business ???

Copyright laws apply to software’s just as they apply to any other material. The only difference being software copyrights extend to not only the source code, which is the heart and soul of software, but also to the design elements, i.e. its user interface. This means that businesses have to shell out a considerable amount of money to buy and use these software’s and also expect only the hands of the developers to fiddle with the code if something needs to be done with it.

Then arrived the “Open Source” software, which allowed whoever who was using the software to also own it, modify it and redistribute it based on their discretion.

 There were many advantages to having open source software some of which are:

·         The software was available for free and downloadable.

·         There was no copyright infringement.

·         Customization to however they wanted it to be could be done.

·         Anyone could redistribute it in however way they wanted.

Some reasons why open source software’s might be good for your business are listed below:

Ø  Security

According to Linus law postulated by Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux “Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow”, which means that the more people are scrutinizing or inspecting a software, the better chance there is of the bugs being found and fixed. This argument runs counter to the “Security through obscurity” argument which justifies prevents users from modifications stating security reasons. Does this mean that IOS code and windows softwares are more secure? Not in the least. It just means that no-one outside of the company has any clue about the bugs and the disappointing part is as copyrighted software’s will take a long time to identify bugs and rollout updates to patch vulnerabilities compared to open source software’s.

Ø  Quality

Open source software’s tend to have better quality as they are developed by thousands of developers worldwide cooperatively instead of a few hundred developers in an enclosed space. It also is closer to what the user wants as they have an active hand in developing it compared to commercial software’s which are released by corporate based on what they think the user wants. Also there are many new features and enhancements being added to open source software’s by independent developers compared to copyrighted ones.

Ø  Cost & Flexibility

Since open source software’s are free, businesses don’t have to spend a dime in acquiring these software’s which also much better suited to their needs and have better support through the vibrant communities surrounding all the software’s. Also, there is a whole lot of flexibility as compared to commercial software’s as modification and changes are allowed. They are typically less resource intensive and support older hardware compared to Windows or Mac software’s which required upgrading to the latest hardware.