Open Source--On a Personal Note
by Reuven Lerner - Mar. 04, 2008Comments (4)- Related Blog Posts
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I have been using open-source software for about 20 years. My first open-source (or "free") program was GNU Emacs, a text editor which I still use to this day, for everything from text to source code.
Emacs is a rather powerful piece of software. (Its icon is a kitchen sink, because it includes just about anything you can imagine.) But Emacs is more than just software: It is a political statement, an attempt to change the world. Emacs was the first, and best-known, piece of software to emerge from Richard Stallman's Free Software Foundation and its Project GNU.
Back then, in the 1980s, it was unusual enough for a sophisticated program to be free of charge. But it was rare for the program to come with its source code. And it was even more unusual for the program to come with a manifesto claiming that all software should be free, effectively declaring war against commercial software companies.
Fast forward two decades, and we can see that the GNU manifesto was simultaneously prescient and way off the mark.
On the one hand, open-source software is now a mainstream reality in the computer world. There are now thousands of open-source packages, ranging from software libraries to editors to databases to GUIs to productivity suites to operating systems, all free of charge, and downloadable at the click of a button. Companies no longer assume that commercial software is superior, because they have seen that it often isn't. And many companies now compete for the right to support open-source installations.
However, the GNU manifesto was completely off-base when it predicted, or called for, the end of commercial software companies. Software companies are doing just fine today, and while they are feeling the heat from open-source projects, they have found new ways to innovate. Open-source software forced commercial software companies to compete, rather than just rake in the money. This is good news for everyone who uses software; as in any competitive market, we have seen prices drop and features increase.
Over the coming weeks and months, I'm going to use my corner of OStatic to look at the software, books, and general trends that make open-source software interesting and useful to me. I'm not against proprietary and commercial software, but I do try to use open-source products when I can -- and for the most part, I believe that my choices have been justified.
Here are a few of the reasons why I've long been a fan of open-source software, and why I continue to use it:
- Low price. Let's face it: Everyone liked to get something for free, especially when the alternative can cost several hundred or thousand dollars. I've grown used to the fact that my development stack (Ruby, Rails, and PostgreSQL on Linux) costs me nothing to download from the Web. There might be many reasons to stick with open source, but I would guess that the low price is how many people first get hooked.
- Rapid fixes. All software has bugs. The question is thus not whether a package will contain bugs, but rather how quickly they will get fixed. The best-known open-source packages are famous for their stability, but also for their rapid bug fixes, particularly when security is involved.
- Community of support. If I have a problem with an open source program, I can turn to a mailing list or forum in which current users participate. Nearly every time I have done this, I have managed to get a useful response within a day. The communities surrounding these programs are impressive; when you choose a program, be sure that the community is supportive. Otherwise, you might find yourself debugging someone else's bad code.
- Cross-platform portability. Open-source software used to run almost exclusively on Unix. Nowadays, it is quite common to find programs that run under Windows, as well as Unix and OS X (which is, after all, a type of Unix). You can choose a program without getting locked into a particular hardware and operating system.
- Standards. Open-source programs typically adhere to international standards, while allowing you to import and export data. Proprietary programs often try to lock you into their platform.
- Transparency. Finally, you can examine how an open-source program works, both to check for security and stability issues, and also to learn programming techniques from it. This kind of transparency is particularly important for government projects, adding a type of democracy and public scrutiny that would not be available with commercial software.
- Profit. It might seem strange, but open-source software can lead to greater profits. This is true for organizations that go open source, thanks to substantially lower costs. But it is also true that developers can often make more money by specializing in open-source technologies.
