Scholarship Essay Why Open Source Matters by Andrew Sillers Directron 2008-Best Computer Online Store Houston Buy Discount Prices Texas-Directron.com

Why Open Source Matters

Directron Scholarship 2008 Essay No. 126

by Andrew Sillers
Current School: Junior at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)

If you are using a computer right now, you have probably used open source software - maybe without realizing it. The term "open source software" refers to computer programs that have publicly accessible source code, which means the software can be freely edited, improved, and shared by anyone. The rise of open source development has had far-reaching effects, both technologically and socially. It has changed how businesses think about software, and it has increased the accessibility of technology to developing nations.

Open source software is created by teams of volunteers, with the help and feedback of users. Because the source code (the human-readable instructions to the computer) is entirely public, anyone can study how the program works, find mistakes, and make improvements. Every project consists of a handful of lead developers who maintain an official version of the code, but any programmer in the world can write bug fixes or implement new features and forward them to the developers. Anyone who makes substantial contributions to a project usually earns a place in the program's credits, along with positive attention from the software industry.

There are examples of open source software everywhere. Java is an open source technology that powers a vast number of applications for computers and mobile devices. Firefox is a popular open source Web browser used by many people and universities worldwide. Of course, Linux is the most popular open source operating system, employed by home users and businesses alike. Open source is not a new movement by any means, but it is now mature enough to demand attention from hardware manufacturers, businesses, governments, and casual users.

Open versus Proprietary

Unlike open source software, which is written by developers with public access to the source code, proprietary software is closed source, developed by a fixed group of programmers who have exclusive access to the code. Most software sold on store shelves is proprietary whereas open source software resides mainly on the Internet, where it can be easily and continuously developed.

OpenOffice.org is a widely used office suite designed to function similarly to Microsoft Office. Despite their similar functionalities and appearances, there is one key difference between the two projects: OpenOffice.org is open source and Microsoft Office is proprietary. This means that anyone is free to study how OpenOffice.org works, find bugs, and share the improvements with others. Everyone who uses OpenOffice.org enjoys the innovations of hundreds of people around the world.

Microsoft Office, however, is proprietary software, meaning it is developed by a closed group of people and no one else is allowed to change it, distribute it, or even know how it works. Additionally, licenses for proprietary software like Microsoft Office typically forbid sharing the software with others or installing the software on multiple machines.

Open source software offers many benefits over proprietary software, but the most important advantages to private users are cost, security, freedom from vendor lock-in, and the freedom to share.

Cost

The most obvious benefit of open source software is that it is usually available free of charge. Because open source development encourages sharing ideas, it does not make sense for the developers to charge for their work; they want people to use and improve the software. Most open source projects are run by volunteers who are more interested in making high quality software than making a profit.

This lack of cost is especially relevant for mobile devices. When a piece of mobile technology costs only a few hundred dollars, it does not makes sense to have it run a proprietary operating system that costs hundreds more. Instead, many companies, like Google and Motorola, are powering their mobile devices with a modified version of Linux, which lowers costs and still provides customers with a fully-featured operating system.

Businesses are also looking at open source software as a reliable, low-cost option. However, there are additional costs for businesses: installation, configuration, and training can be laborious tasks for a large company, even if the software itself is free to obtain. Additionally, since open source projects are not usually commercially driven, businesses may have to hire third party groups for timely software support. Nevertheless, open source can still be a competitive option, as proprietary software must also be costly to install, configure, and support, in addition to the cost of the software itself.

Security

One common concern about open source is security: if anyone is free to see how open source programs work, doesn't that mean that attackers can find security holes more easily? For the most prominent open source projects (Firefox, OpenOffice.org, Linux), the answer is definitely no. Large open source projects are commonly studied by students and professionals and every project has a team of dedicated developers who work on their software on a daily basis. Additionally, although anyone can suggest changes to the system and write fixes to the code, only a select, trusted group can make changes to a project's code repository, so it is unlikely that anyone could deliberately insert malicious code into the software.

Although proprietary software gets some measure of security from secret code, it suffers from having a smaller pool of developers who can see that code. Open source's strength comes from many developers examining the code, so more popular projects are more likely to reliable and secure. On the other hand, less popular open source projects are therefore at a greater risk, because they lack the safety of a large developer base and suffer from having exposed code. Most mainstream open source projects, however, are easily as secure or more secure than proprietary equivalents.

Another way open source software is more secure for users is that it cannot do anything secretly, without users knowing. Whenever a user runs a piece of closed source software, that program could perform any number of hidden processes from damaging the user's data to sending sensitive information over the Internet. Open source software has its source code open to the public, and since a program can only do what is written in its source code, the behavior of all open source programs is freely available.

For this reason, many governments now have policies that require or prefer open source software. India, Brazil, Korea, and the European Union are just a few of the governments that favor open source programs because it lacks the potential for secret activities.

Freedom from vendor lock-in

Imagine a flashlight manufacturer that designed their products to accept only a unique, square-shaped battery that is manufactured exclusively by that flashlight company. This would be an example of vendor lock-in because if anyone wanted to use that company's flashlights, the consumer would have to buy their batteries, no matter how much they cost. Vendor lock-in is the dependence on a specific supplier for a particular product or service.

Proprietary software often uses encrypted files types, which can only be opened by specific programs. Microsoft Word produces files with the ".doc" extension, which are secretly encoded, so only Microsoft products can open them. If Microsoft went bankrupt, there would be no program that could open those files, because Microsoft is the only company that knows how to decrypt them. (Note: The open source community has partially decrypted the .doc filetype, but only after extensive work and without complete success.) For reasons such as these, there has been a move toward open file specifications, like OpenOffice.org's .odt files and Microsoft's own .docx files. The benefit of the open source is that file specifications cannot be kept secret. The behavior of any open source program that reads or writes the files is public knowledge.

Another form of vendor lock-in is platform dependence. Many proprietary products are designed to run on one particular operating system or on a certain type of hardware, and as long as the source code to those programs is hidden, they will never be usable in any other environment. Adobe Photoshop, for example, is a proprietary program that runs on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X and is unusable on Linux. If a business wanted to switch to Linux but needed to use Photoshop, their dependence on the program would keep them locked in a particular operating system.

Open source programs, however, can be modified to run on any operating system and even on mobile devices. The GIMP is an open source alternative to Photoshop that has been modified to run on many operating systems. Public source code means that the software does not have to be limited to a particular platform.

Freedom to share

The most important aspect of open source is the freedom to distribute software with as few restrictions as possible. Users can give their favorite programs to their friends; businesses can install software on as many computers as they need, free from the licensing audits of proprietary software; schools and governments in developing nations can purchase low-cost hardware without the extra burden of high software costs.

Where proprietary software prohibits sharing, open source embraces it. The open source development model relies on sharing because when more people use the software, more people help improve the software by writing code, reporting bugs, and creating guides and documentation. The act of sharing with a friend, which can get you branded as a "pirate" in the world of proprietary software, is the very basis of open source software.

Open source development aims to produce superior software, but it is more than a mere technical issue; nearly everyone in the world sees its effects. The process of creating a piece of open source software is always a community effort supported by programmers, artists, writers, and users from around the world. The open source movement means that users around the world have access to high-quality, low-cost software that defends their freedom to share, unfettered by restrictive licenses and corporate interests. Although open source software may never replace proprietary software entirely, it will certainly continue to change the world for the better.

References: | Directron.com College Scholarship |

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