In the world of computing all high-end or advanced applications, such as biomedical research or even 75% of all web traffic use an "open source" operating system called Linux. With such a large grasp on the high-end market, the open source method should be established as the standard by which the software industry produces all of its products,with all systems with the acception of games. If and when open source development were established as the standard for developing software, developers and end-users with programming skills would be able to interact to better test and improve upon software. The base of any open source program is that it must run on the Linux, Operating System. Linux is an interesting technology, and has a unique history. Linux was created in 1991 by a student at a university in Finland; this student's name was Linus Torvalds. Torvalds created Linux because of a need he had. Linus was a hobbyist whose passion was to manipulate and modify electronics to discover what the could possibly due. However, in the case of computers, Linus had no outlet to build upon since there was not any operating system available for a reasonable price, or at least not a very functional one. So, in response to his drive to tinker he created Linux as a hobby (Hasan). Yet, because of its resembiling to a mainstream system which was wildely used, and the the systems ability to compile the popular programming language of the time called "C", Linux place in the computing world was sealed. With the creation of Linux, Torvalds implemented a new system of distribution and development of software that had been previously unheard of; he distributed the software for free on the Internet and "on [the] condition that anyone who altered or improved [upon the software] agreed to share those changes with other users" (Ross). The method of distribution that Torvalds created is called open source. Since open source software allows anyone with the skills to change or modify the code it has created an entire community of people willing to create patches or fixes for software when the need arises. By building a community of developers rather than using a fixed staff to build or improve a program, costs are cut in development and patches for problems can be addressed more readily rather than only responding to a mass scale issue as can be seen with other development methods. In general the corporate world has been shifting their position. Previously corporation have made it a practice to buy proprietary software from companies such as Oracle and Microsoft. "It's actually a basic principle of high-tech marketing: once a product becomes the industry standard, it almost always retains that position even if competitors come on the scene that are better or offer new features. Why? For the same reason that most car owners choose not to mess under the hood. Not being engineers, they're quire content to live with what's there., rather than yanking out the engine and installing something new that goes a bit faster or gets slightly better gas mileage"(Laver).
The most famous piece of proprietary software is Microsoft's Windows. Microsoft who develops most of its software using the proprietary method. The proprietary method of building software is the complete opposite of open source, proprietary software is software developed by a specific group of people or a certain company that has exclusive access to the software code. Patches for proprietary software are distributed for free on the Internet in general, but are only produced when they software's owner only feels the problem has a large impact on its customers base. However, proprietary software is currently designed more user friendly and offers better support, yet the support comes at constantly increasing prices. Despite the 97% of computer users, who are still reliant on Micorosft Windows (Murphy), corporations have been leading the push for open source packages. Companies such as Microsoft have seen the success, popularity, and acceptance of open source projects and it has ". . . forced Microsoft to open up a bit."(Lohr) Microsoft for years has been under a legal attack from other companies in the software industry, yet open source projects such as any software from Red Hat has nothing but loyal users. Micorosft is tryign to build its reputation because of initiatives such as "Shared Source" which allows certain parts of their software to be made public therefore people can have the ability to modify it, which is clearly similar to open source software in a limited capacity. The world leading propietary software manufacturer changes its policy to become more like open source software then that sends a powerful message to others, mainly that open source methods of distribution are more benefical to both the company which produces the software and it engenders a following in the public view, therefore open source development is clearly a better alternative. ReferencesLyons, Daniel. "Cheapware." Forbes. (6 Sept. 2004). 15 Sept. 2004 <http://www.forbes.com/global/2004/0906/058_print.html"> |
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