Week 6: Clear- Open Source Software

Open Source Software

Open Source software is defined as "a program in which the source code is available to the general public for use and/or modification free of charge. Webopedia.


Open Source Software (OSS) was first introduced and made popular to the world by a 21 year old named Linus Torvalds. He developed an operating system name Linux (note the resemblance to his first name).
The development of this and following generations of the Linux OS ushered in a new era of software development. It completely redefined how software was developed, evolving from a company-based development initiative (which was guarded much like trade secrets) to a completely free and publicly collaborative atmosphere.


Many corporations opt to use OSS over proprietary software for many reasons, a few are:


Its Free- the software used in corporations can be very costly and drive up tech costs. A conversion to open source could be very cost effective. Many Fortune 500 companies have reported several millions of dollars in annual savings just by changing from proprietary software. 

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More Secure and Reliable- When you have many people collaboratively working on developing software, it is much more likely that a bug or glitch will be found and fixed. This also goes for security issues and finding backdoors into programs. The more people reading through the code, the more likely they will find a vulnerability that wasn't previously located. 










Video explaining OSS:

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