Group Project:

This week we focused on making minor changes to our wireframes for both the web and mobile versions of the pages we are building. We have also successfully set up the development environment. I personally had a few bugs while installing the environment but it now is running smoothly.

We heavily relied on the available and detailed documentation to guide us through this process. The Oppia repository also had a page dedicated to potential errors one may have and how to fix them. Our point of contact, Sean Lip also set up a meeting with us to discuss the code base and give us an overview. We previously thought creating a static HTML page would be simple, but upon further inspection, it actually required several other files to be linked together and referenced in order to successfully work.

One of the major challenges after setting up the environment was making sure that we referenced our page in the appropriate files. Otherwise, our page did not render. We used the thank you page on their site and took notes on all the other pages that references this specific page.

Open Source in Business:

One aspect of open source that I didn’t know about was its involvement in business. I never considered companies such as Red Hat leverage open source to make a successful business model. Red Hat uses a subscription based model and charges their users to download the Linux software offered. Besides subscription, other businesses can also make money through donations and software consultations.

Here are major benefits for businesses to use open source:

Control — Using Open Source software lets you be in control of your business. Unlike commercial software you can be the master of your own destiny. Flexibility — It is licensed in such a way that you can modify it yourself or hire a third party to modify it to suit the specific needs of your business. Reliability — It is developed in such a way that it is typically more reliable ( i.e. fewer bugs ) than software which is developed using a standard commercial development method. Cost — Open source software can be obtained and used with little to no up front costs. You only pay for the support you actually need, and most importantly only when you need it. Longevity — When a commercial software company goes out of business you lose all your support, bug fixes, security patches, and possibility of future versions. If a piece of software you use is critical to your business, and is Open Source, you can simply contract with a consulting firm, individual programmers, or other third parties.