Opensource
software is software that makes the source code available for anyone to copy and use. For most of us, having
access to the source code of a program does us little good, as we are not programmers and won’t be able to do much with
it. The good news is that opensource
software is also available in a compiled format that we can simply download and
install. The opensource
movement has led to the development of some of the mostused
software in the world, including
the Firefox browser, the Linux operating system, and the Apache web server. Many also think opensource
software is
superior to closedsource
software. Because the source code is freely available, many programmers have contributed to opensource
software projects, adding features and fixing bugs.
Many businesses are wary of opensource
software precisely because the code is available for anyone to see. They feel
that this increases the risk of an attack. Others counter that this openness actually decreases the risk because the code is
exposed to thousands of programmers who can incorporate code changes to quickly patch vulnerabilities.
There are many arguments on both sides of the aisle for the benefits of the two models. Some benefits of the opensource
model are: