I always see people looking specifically for open source software and never knew why. Thanks!
In: Technology
Besides the openness as most folks stated there is also the independence from the whims of the authors. They can’t force you to switch to a new version, and if they go in a direction that doesn’t please part of their audience, someone can “fork” the software. So the software follows the user base, not what marketing thinks is best for the bottom line.
I think the security aspect has been explained by others already. I’ll just add that there are also other reasons that people will look specifically for open-source software.
My personal reasons are that I want to support FOSS, which I believe is beneficial for everyone. I also like using software that I can somewhat fix whatever gripes I have with it. I can often alter the source code myself, submit bug reports that will be responded to, or contribute to the project and have my name among hundreds of others that made and are maintaining the software that I’m using.
It’s the best feeling in the world when a piece of software updates to the next release, and I see my own changes in effect.
* you can see the source code. This means even if _you_ can’t read it, others can and if it’s popular enough it’s likely you’ll find out through the grapevine if it’s doing something sketchy
* People can fix and submit bugs. A lot of closed-source for-profit companies rely on “security through obscurity,” and often prefer to hide security vulnerabilities instead of fixing them.
* Safety is about more than just “getting hacked,” and open source provides a lot of other benefits such as knowing you’ll always have access to the software, the organization being forced to listen to it’s community (otherwise the community will just take the software and release their own version), and often times the software being more cross-platform than it’s closed source counterparts.
On top of what other people mention with transparency and being able to view what the underlying software is doing, you get the added benefit of more people hypothetically being able to use/test the software for bugs. The more use cases and more wide applications something is used, it’s generally better and more proven as the software goes through iterative improvements.
Other people have explained the whole concept of being able to review the source code. But here’s my take,
It’s all about their intentions for making the software in the first place. When a developer makes a project open source and freely available, it’s because they believe they have created something useful that might be useful to others. They want other people to be able to use that software, and they want other people to be able to expand upon that software. Their desire for releasing the software isn’t money or fame, but often just because they saw a niche that wasn’t being filled by other software.
Software that isn’t open source, but is free, often has some other angle to it about how they want to make money. This isn’t the case every time, but quite often this is how it goes. Sometimes it’s bundling in other software that’s on a trial period. Sometimes it’s collecting and selling your data. Sometimes it’s showing you advertising. Sometimes it’s from limiting features and then charging you full the full version.
Open source software is usually just software with no strings attached, while closed source software often has an alterior motive, especially if it’s free.
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