ELI5, Why is Open Source Software considered safe if it can be accessed and changed by anyone?
In: Technology
Alice writes a useful program. She puts the program’s source code on her website.
Bob downloads Alice’s program. Because Bob has the source code, he can change the program to work differently. However Bob’s only changing his own personal copy of the program running on his own computer.
In order for Bob to affect the program other people download, one of the following things would have to happen:
– (a) Bob sends his changes to Alice. Alice looks at Bob’s changes. If Alice agrees with the changes, she updates the code on her website to include them.
– (b) Bob uploads the program to his own website, and convinces people to download it from his website instead
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