Open Source

In the past open source was known as a radical thing, who would ever want to develop under an open development model in which the source code was available to any and all who wished to view it? Well it turned out to be a very popular development model of our time.

Have you met any computer scientists or software engineers that do not use open source software? Yea didn't think so and if you do, then chances are they live in a cave or something (ironic for a cs or se person right?). Even non technical people probably use open source software. Some good examples of open source projects are Linux, and R statistical programming language. These are great alternatives to other paid software such as OSX or Windows, and SPSS. Although open source software lacks the great features and security that paid software provides, it is still good software.

So how does open source work? Like this: developers come together to create and improve open source software over time, that's it simple. Or is it that simple? Probably not as there is licensing and other legal stuff that has to be done, but for the most part that's the gist of open source development.

Even though open source has become a great part of our lives at this point, I do not see all software becoming open source. A reason for this is that most people want to make money and you usually can't make money with open source projects.

It is a known fact that open source has been a big part of the computer science and software field for quite a while now, and it is here to stay.