Open Source

When I think of open source I think of software whose code is open for everyone to see. That anyone can take the code, make their own alterations and propose changes to either the original or create their own project. An advantage of open source is the community of users can come up with the best ideas for improving the project. If there are issues or bugs with the software, a community working on a fix could potentially be much quicker than if it were up to one company. This community could also be a down side to open source. If the members cannot agree on the changes to the software, then there could be splits resulting in divergent versions. I signed up for a class on open source software development because I wanted to learn what open source is all about and start contributing to projects.

Projects

One of my most frequently used piece of software is Google Chrome, which is based off of the open-source Chromium project. Some other browsers including Microsoft Edge and Opera also based on Chromium. I have used React, a Facebook project, in creating web applications. My laptop runs Mac OS, which is built on top of the open source Darwin kernel. My mobile phone runs Android, which is built on top of the open source Linux kernel.