It is Christmas, and Daddy brings home a Christmas tree, and the tree needs to be decorated. You have lots of decoration ideas, same as your sister, but you cannot decorate the tree till you receive permission from your Dad. Until permission to decorate the tree is granted, you cannot decorate the tree. This is similar to the way open source works.
So what could Open Source mean?
Open source is the source code of computer software that is accessible to the public to change, redo, remake only when permission is granted.
How does that work?
In the development process of that software, publicly making it accessible is considered so that when the software is released, anyone can have access to it through a means of permission. Github is where open source projects are mostly uploaded so they can be made available to the public. From Github, there are repositories where you can get the project to use the code or contribute changes to the software.
The permission given to open source is called License . This License contains conditions where the actual owners of the software state how exactly they want you to use, change or modify their software. Some of these licenses could include MIT license(MIT), Apache License 2.0, GNU General Public License etc.
Open Source Software are most preferred because they are interested in having more control over these kinds of software. Examples of Open Source Projects include; Linux, Mozilla Firefox, Apache, WordPress, VLC Media Player etc.
Why the need for Open Source?
Contributing to Open Source has lots of benefits, and they are
- Open Source Software tends to have fewer bugs than regular software.
- Open source helps owners do a global software product for little to free cost.
- It encourages collaboration amongst the Open Source Communities.
- The source code is made available to the public to understand its purpose or how it works and how it works.
- It promotes the exchange of knowledge, allowing for more people to become skilled software developers.
- Since it is made public for modification, it meets all the criteria of the public.
- It is free.
- Open Source Software is highly secured because developers constantly review the code, thereby ensuring security and accountability.