What Is Open Source Software?

Open Source software is different from commercial software, or software you'd buy at Best Buy, because it is software that provides access to its code. This allows anyone to modify and redistribute the software. So Open Source software is essentially free, though there are costs for things such as CDs, printed manuals, and support, if you need them. The great thing about Open Source software is the ability to modify and redistribute the software, allowing anyone to customize the software, use the software as a foundation to build new software, or simply use the software for free.

You can be confident in the security and stability of most Open Source software. Since the code for Open Source software is open for all to see and contribute, there are many individuals, organizations, and corporations working on many different Open Source software projects. This means thousands of eyes are pouring over the code to verify its quality, and if you have any doubts you can look at the code yourself or have someone look for you. However, since some Open Source projects are more popular than others, if the software doesn't meet your standards or needs you are free to modify it so that it does.

There are many Open Source projects providing software above and beyond what you can find commercially. One great example is the Apache Web Server. No other web server is used more than Apache, by far. Nearly every website on the Internet is run on Apache. The speed, power, flexibility, stability and security of the server is unmatched by any other general purpose web server. The Apache web server has been the foundation of the web since nearly its inception, and since it's Open Source it will continue to do so for decades or more.

Mozilla Firefox provides another example of a software product that is superior in many ways to its commercial competitor. Microsoft Internet Explorer originally beat out Netscape Navigator as the most used web browser because Microsoft bundled it with Windows and gave it away for free. Yet Internet Explorer had problems. It was critically insecure, displayed websites incorrectly, and locked users into proprietary and substandard technologies such as ActiveX. Firefox gained in popularity simply because it excelled where Internet Explorer failed. Not because it was bundled with every new computer or required to run certain software. In the years since Firefox's release Microsoft has tried to undo its past, but still fails. Firefox's success is built on its ability to provide innovative, stable and secure software through the Open Source methodology.

For software to be considered Open Source the software must be distributed with an appropriate license that gives any user the rights to modify and redistribute the software. There is an organization that approves software licenses as Open Source, called the Open Source Initiative. Software licenses that adhere to the Open Source Definition are approved. There are many different Open Source licenses, each with slightly different rules. Examples of such licenses are the popular GNU General Public License (GPL), the Mozilla Public License (MPL), the Apache License, and the BSD License.

We all benefit from the use and improvement of Open Source software. Open Source software will never go away. It can't, since someone can always pick up where the last person left off. So it will only improve with time. The better it gets, the more people will use it. With more people using the software there are more people to improve the software, as well as find and fix issues. Anyone can use the software, thus we all benefit when one more person starts using an Open Source product or a developer contributes code to an Open Source project.

So if Open Source software is so good and free, why does any other software (i.e. custom, commercial) exist? Open Source software is good at many things, but not everything. There's a "cycle" to Open Source software. Generally, software that requires some financial investment in research, or to be built upon commercial software, starts off as commercial software. But as the underlying software become commodities and Open Source software foundations become available, Open Source equivalents can be created, and the commercial solution becomes a commodity. Basically, innovative software starts off difficult to create and replicate, but as software technology progresses, the innovation becomes easier to replicate. Even still, niche software can't be easily developed as Open Source since there just aren't enough users. There will always be a need and desire for commercial, Open Source, and custom software.