Closed source vs. open
There is a battle for your attention and money. It’s not viruses, but software. Open-source software against closed-source software. One type of support could be a community that is dedicated to the development, support, and testing of one piece of software. Another would be a company that doesn’t allow any editing of their software outside of the company. This is the difference between open-source and closed-source software. Open-source software can be viewed, edited and redistributed through any means necessary. It can be looked at, patched, or even developed further, by a single person or though a community. Proprietary, or closed-source, software, can’t have its source code looked at by anyone except “certain approved individuals,” which means that only a select few can look at the software, most likely people within a corporate entity itself. Let’s say there is a security hole in an operating system that can cause someone to access your computer. Closed-source solutions may not be able to patch that security hole in time or even could be slower than open-source solutions that have a big community (like Linux). Microsoft, for example, releases its patches for Windows on the second Tuesday of every month for every piece of software that it creates. Linux releases its patches as soon as it’s tested to work. What do you think is better between these two communities? What about customizing the look and feel of an operating system, and being user-friendly? In Linux, customization is easy. It is not only able to customize sounds, desktop pictures and screen savers, but able to show certain alerts, change the window or even the graphic user interface, while being user-friendly. In Windows, however, there isn’t that much freedom to customize, and any customization is not user friendly. That is, if you are changing anything other than the desktop background, the colors of the desktop, the screen saver or the screen resolution. What about making a derivative (an alternate) version of a piece of software? Open-source allows anyone to modify the source of one piece of software, in any form. You can create a different “flavor” or distribution of that piece of software based on it. Closed-source software, on the other hand, doesn’t allow for “derivative works” and could cause either a “cease and desist” court order or could cause a lawsuit if it goes that far. Open-source software, licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) or the Lesser General Public License (LGPL), can be distributed or redistributed for free or for a price. The LGPL allows the use of the software or library be redistributed in a closed-source solution as long as it’s recognized within the software that it includes the library under the LGPL. Open-source is “free” as in “freedom,” not in price (yes, there is open-source software that costs money, like some “flavors” of Linux), but it does include a line for redistributing for free or for a price. Closed-source is more restrictive and doesn’t allow for redistribution.
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