Open Source systems or software is developed without any copyright restrictions. Developers of such software do so mainly as a joint effort to create soemthing that can be used by the masses free of charge.
So the question arises, why do people develop open source software. The simplest answer to this goes as follows. Collaboration is perhaps the best way for
developers to come together and work on a piece of software. An idea can be developed with hundreds and thousands of software developers contributing to the development process and in one way enhance the total product quality. Take for example Linux, operating system software which was designed by Linus Trovaldis. Unlike Microsoft, Linux is an open source software to which nobody holds a copyright. Anyone can change the way the software works, add functionality to it or even remove functionality. The result is a powerful system that the software community contributes to together, thus creating something which is constantly being updated and improved.
Companies such as Microsoft hold copyrights to the source code of all the software they develop. This means that nobody can make any changes to the software and unless Microsoft itself makes improvements to it, you can do nothing about it. This is one way to keep your customers locked in and dependent.
Open Source on the other hand takes away the monopoly from software companies. The result of years of this collaborative effort has led o the creation of hundreds and thousands of open source software’s that you could download free of charge and use as you please. Some popular open source scripts include Linux, Ubuntu, Joomla, Drupal and Wordpress. All these have different functionality. Some of these are Operating Systems, some Content management Systems and some plain utilities to make your computing experience more productive.
Open Source Software is here to stay. With newer technologies being invented every year, today's software's are much more advanced than what they were just a few years back. Software giants such as Microsoft are already facing challenges and competition because of this and also changing the way they do business.
If you are looking for custom software or a website, do ask your services provider if they have any open source solutions on hand as that could save you a ton of cash and also keep the window for improvement open !
