Open Source Software Benefits
A few days ago, my whole family wanted to watch a movie. It was only available in original version, but I found a file with the Spanish subtitles. As we were 4 people, we could not see it on the small screen of my laptop, so I passed the two files (the video, and that of the subtitles) to a hard drive, and I plug at TV, waiting for the subtitles to appear At the bottom of the screen, just like when he played the movie on the computer. But … horror! The hard drive did not know how to "connect" the two files. So I decided to look online to find a solution to the problem.
Soon, I found a tutorial on how to merge, so to speak, the video and the subtitles in a single file. The method required to use the “VLC Player” program, a video player with many functionalities, and still free. How is it possible that a product that serves to do so many things is free? The answer is simple: VLC Player was not made by a single person, nor a single company that seeks to get benefit selling licenses that allow us to use it, but by thousands of people, who are both developers and users. Anyone can see the source code, and contribute, adding improvements and changes. This is the definition of free software or, as we are going to call it from now on, "Open Source".
Normally, software -shaped products are created and distributed by a single company, which charges for its use, either in the form of a unique payment, or a periodic subscription. The user community may have more or less influence on the decision of this company to add one or another new function, but in the end it is the members of the company who have the last word about whether that characteristic will be incorporated. In addition, distributing the software to people who have not paid for it is considered piracy, and it is normally.
All these "standards" have been rejected by the Open Source community. Many times there is the confusion of considering that a product is Open Source just because it shares its code so that everyone can see it, and/or allows redistribution for free and not controlled by people outside the creators, but that would be A complete definition of Open Source. The Open Source Initiative (OSI) considers an Open Source project if, apart from these two conditions, complies that: the modification of the code by any person is allowed, and the distribution of the program with these modifications; Do not restrict the use of that program along with others, open source or not, nor the fields in which it can be used (you cannot put a clause in the terms and conditions of use that specifies that the software cannot be used, for example , in a scientific investigation, or within a company environment).
The term Open Source was first used on February 3, 1998, by Christine Peterson, then executive director at the Foresight Institute, a non -profit organization focused on investigating new technologies, and promoting the responsible use of these. In weekly meetings focused on discussing how computer security could be improved, they concluded that what was then commonly called, within the circles of people familiar with the world of technology, "free software", was the solution. The fact that in English the word Free refer so much to something free (cost -free), or something free, in the sense of absence of obstacles or ties, it made preaching the use of the free software was confusing, because not all the Free programs meet the conditions previously listed. This confusion is eliminated in Spanish, translating the term as "free software" (in fact, the words free and free are sometimes used in English conversations to make everything clear).
Since the 80s, the use of free software was mainly promoted by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), a non -profit organization founded by Richard Stallman, Harvard student and researcher at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT, in 1985. During his stay at MIT, Stallman and his teammates had developed a program that he notified through an SMS when a printer had ended the person who had started the printing work, and to all those who worked in the laboratory when the printer He was stuck, or suffered some kind of error. When they decided to change their printer, the company to which they bought it decided not to give access to the source code to the MIT laboratory, which caused Richard Stallman to be even more convinced of the need for free software. Today, the FSF continues to exist, and Stallman continues to travel all over the world giving talks about free software.
To avoid the confusion of terms, the Foresht management team spent weeks thinking about alternatives to appoint programs whose source code is available. Between two of his weekly meetings, Peterson occurred to him to use Open Source. Open, open, referring to anyone can access the source code, or source code. Several Christine colleagues, including Todd Anderson, programmer, liked the term, so they supported him in the vote that was made on February 5, 1998. Shortly after they set up the website of what would be the Open Source Initiative. For the “rebranding” of Free Software to Open Source Software to be effective, they had the collaboration of Tim O’Reilly as diffuser of the term within the computer enthusiasts circles.
One of the things that promoted the promotion of Open Source by Foresight was the release of the Netscape browser source code, the most used at that time. The license used by Netscape allowed them to continue to draw versions of their product using much of the source code of the Open Source version, while the GPL license, driven by Stallman, would not allow something like that. Although it could be said that the objective of the FSF and the OSI are similar, if not identical, Richard Stallman and its foundation offer a vision of the matter based much more on morality (they argue that non-Libre software is a violation of the human rights) that in pragmatics, as the cause of the OSI.
At first, you can think, “Do I really want to install such a program on my computer? If anyone can add things, you can also add a virus or something like that?". No way! In practice, it is the opposite. Since anyone with programming knowledge can review the source code, it is much more likely to know any vulnerability, and that it is quickly arranged by the large community-developer community.
"Given a sufficiently elevated number of eyes, all errors become obvious".
This is summarized in the so -called "Linus Law", called by the creator of the Open Source Linus Torvald operating system. In addition, the fact that constant changes are introduced in the program causes a very active community to be created around it, which you can go looking for help if you have any type of doubt or problem when using it. Most Open Source projects use the so -called "agile methodologies", called like this because it allows people who work in it to fix or modify any characteristic as long as they want and can, without having to wait for that task to be assigned by a boss by a boss of project.
What benefits does this have? The importance given to the community makes Open Source products add the characteristics that users want, and not those that a software company believes what they want. In addition, thanks to agile methodologies, these characteristics are usually available as soon as they are finished, and not periodically (twice a year, annually …). Thus, developers can receive user feedback as soon as possible, and the cycle starts again. An Open Source project that remains active will not be much time with users asking for a feature, or complaining that something works badly.
This sense of community among users is also among developers that contribute to a project. They are usually kept in contact with each other, through forums, email lists, social networks … etc. Thus, they learn among them, and it is prevented that instead of thinking about several solutions for a problem that are well, they can join to devise a single solution that is the most efficient and the best possible possibility. It could be compared to the alchemists, who formerly kept all the knowledge obtained and their new discoveries in great volumes and notebooks that did not show anyone. This was not very efficient, because otherwise another alchemist had discovered the same as you, and each one of you, individually, has to continue progressing in his research and doing experiments on his own. When these alchemists decided to share their knowledge among them, we began to call them scientists, and humanity began to progress faster and faster.
Of course, the Open Source revolution did not happen as long as the scientific revolution, it is not something that started yesterday. The Open Source has accompanying the world of technology practically since its birth.
In the 70s, almost no home had a computer. If you wanted a personal computer or PC, you had to gather these components and assemble it yourself. If you needed a program, you had to program it. The information necessary to do this was transmitted from one person to another, through local groups of technological or magazines on the subject. But in 1981, the IBM company launched the IBM PC, a pre-motado computer, which led the hardware to a much greater number of people.
Of course, together with the hardware, the software has to come. IBM hired Microsoft to create MS-DOS, the operating system that was installed on their computers. Continue creating free and free software, when you could sell it and earn money, it almost became a counterculture.
"Who can afford a professional job in exchange for nothing? What fan can be 3 years programming, finding all bugs, writing documentation for your product and distributing free?
That was the message that Bill Gates, co -founder of Microsoft, tried.
Participating in the Open Source community was then incredibly difficult. To contribute to a project you had to find some way to contact the creator or any of the coordinators. In addition, each project used different development tools. For example, there were many version control programs, which record all changes made to the code, are used so that the contributions of a developer are not repetitions of another, and every time you entered a new project, you had to learn to use the one they used.
In the late 90s, almost all the tools you could need to work with a computer, they had an equivalent Open Source, but the large technology companies still did not convince them. On the other hand, the small businesses of any field, who discovered that using Open Source software was great savings, they loved. A company that tried to take advantage of it was VA Linux, founded as Research in 1993, which tried to sell laptops with pre-installed Linux. When they realized that the more people use Open Source, the better the business, they opened the SourceForge website in 1999, where developers could host their code so that everyone saw it, and carry a list of the bugs to solve. That made the code and the place to contribute to an Open Source project become much easier than in previous decades, but it was still to be solved the problem with the varied version control programs.
In 2005, when the company that developed the version control program that Linus Torvald used, Bitkeeper, decided to stop supporting the free version for Linux, the creator of the operating system created another completely free and free version control program: Git. His only problem was that it is not very intuitive by itself, but it was partially solved in 2008 with the launch of Github, a web page in which all developers who participate in a project and all their users could collaborate, suggesting changes and calling the Error attention, in addition to being able to accommodate your code. Another similar website, Bitbucket, premiered the same year, but using the Git Competitor Versions Control Program. Today only 1% of projects use mercurial, while 70% use git.
That same year Stackoverflow was also opened, a website where developers with programming doubts could ask, and receive responses from other programmers.
Since then, there is some unification in the tools used by the vast majority of programmers. Git to keep a record of all changes made to a code base, Github to collaborate, and Stackoverflow to solve doubts. Contributing to an Open Source product is easier than ever today. Both sharing your projects and contributing to those of other people is easier than ever today, in the information age. This has also been taken out of the software world. For example, could Open Source be considered to share the recipe for a cake? The necessary ingredients and the procedure would be available for free, and with that information you can reproduce everything to the letter, or maybe add an ingredient or modify the way to do something. When you take it out of the oven and try it, you can share your successes and errors in the modifications you have made with the rest of pastry enthusiasts. Are you allergic to egg, and have you used a substitute, but the cake has been too dry? Any other user, who has probably been seen with the same problem, will tell you how he has solved it.
This benefit, not having to try all the solutions for a problem, is especially useful for companies that are dedicated to user -oriented software. Many basic things (such as the necessary programming for an online store to capture the card code a buyer safely, and charge the necessary amount) are totally solved by the Open Source community, and because thousands of thousands of people have had the opportunity to examine the code, making it highly effective. Another analogy to this would be to build a house. You need bricks for this, but if there is already the possibility of buying them already cooked instead of having to look for clay, make a mold, and feed an oven, it is obvious the option you are going to choose. All the time that developers had to use to create all that code, now they can use it in developing something totally new.
What does it mean for me? conclusion
Returning to my problem, while looking for solutions, I found several web pages that offered payment software that I did what I needed, but none of them finished convincing me for several reasons. Today, one would think that something as simple as joining two files can be done for free, right? Another of those reasons was the little confidence that these programs inspired me, of which I had never heard before, except for a blog post on the same website. When you install something on your computer, you are depositing your trust in your developers, which is very difficult if you have no idea who they are.
While the union of the subtitles and the video was processed, I began to investigate on Open Source software. Some of the programs I had installed in my laptop could be qualified as such: Libreoffice, a quite complete office suite, which uses as an alternative to Microsoft Office Suite, of payment, but with the same characteristics; Visual Studio Code, the text editor that I am using to learn to program; Firefox and Brave, two web browsers; Caliber, a program that uses to change the file formats to be able to read them in my ebook … etc. Also apps on my phone, such as Telegram, and the operating system itself, Android. And then, I fell that if I would ever like to have any function that is not yet present in any of these products, I could suggest to the community that I implemented it, or, even, do it myself! Since … why not? /Adobe, abuse of power/to realize that I could, I had to find a survey in which more than 650 developers participated in 287 Open-Source projects, in which 40% said they were self-taught. Of those same respondents, 58% declared to work directly in the technology industry, and of them, 45% as programmers. If you stop to think about it, at first it is a bit shocking. Do you pay you to program, and then you get home and decide to continue doing it … for free? Not quite. Continuing to program on your own has the benefit of, of course, to serve as a practice. As the code can be seen by anyone, you have guaranteed the reception of constructive criticism and quality advice. Also, some of these people needed extra functions for both personal and work use (a clear example of the phrase "if you want something well done, do it yourself").
For most programmers, the job search involves the review of a porpholio. Today, the majority of companies that hire programmers consider the contribution to Open Source projects as something quite important in your porpholio, since it shows them skills programming, working as a team together with other taxpayers to fix failures and implement new functions in An existing product, from conceptualization to deployment, in addition to that you are familiar with the community and the Open Source products. Similarly, if a company let everyone see their code, it is possible that a developer is interested in their projects and decide to ask for work. For a company, assessing the contribution to Open Source projects as something positive guarantees that your team of programmers is formed by curious people, who likes challenges and solve problems. In addition, if the use of Open Source tools is already common in the company, it is much more likely that a programmer who is familiar with the Open Source community knows something about them. Angularjs Framework, based on JavaScript language, is commonly used to make web applications (more than 150 have been made.000 questions about him and Stackoverflow), Open Source, and is maintained for nothing more and nothing less than Google. Which may make us ask you: Why does a company release its code, when you could sell it and earn money?
Some companies, such as Redhat, offer their operating system of the same name for free, but not "customer service". If any kind of company or organization always wants to have available, as soon as possible, a team of experts looking for solutions for their needs and solutions to their problems, have to pay for it. According to the Red Hat customer list in 2016, 90% of Fortune 500 companies have decided to opt for this model.
Others, whose sector is not necessarily technology, but they make extensive use of it, the code of the tools that create its engineers, such as Airbnb, can be made public. The holiday rental company has decided to release many of the tools created by themselves, since that does not affect their activity, and helps other people who may need those tools, which gives them a good reputation.
The OS is also widely used by organizations that do not seek monetary benefits. The Junta de Andalucía has been promoting free software as a means of digital literacy for years, as is collected in Decree 72/2003. To do this they have promoted the development of their own distribution of the Linux Free Operating System, called Guadalinex, along with a version for the business environment, Gecos, which receives updates every few days in its repository in Github. Other governments that have adopted Open Source are French, British and the American, in addition to the European Union. Apart from the aforementioned, there are other reasons why governments decide Security failure, do not depend on the updates cycles of a single company in the case of needing any new function (and greater ease of using an earlier version if necessary), in addition to giving a transparency image.
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