What is Open Source?

In situations outside the information technology area, the term ‘open source’ applies to an approach to product design and development that is open and accessible to all, as opposed to closed or centralized system. In IT field, however, the term relates to open source software and applications built upon that software, as opposed to proprietary software.

Ever since the Internet became the everyday word, the term open source gained the popularity. Now it largely means open access to source code of software for public collaboration. Widely used open source products include Apache Server, Mozilla Firefox browser and Linux operating system.

Open Source Software

Open source software is defined as the kind of computer software whose source code and other details are available to public domain. Open source software enables users to use, modify and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified form. Users are treated as co-developers and they have access to the source code of the software. This allows the users to make additions to the software and also fix the bugs.

Open Source Applications and Official Gates

Though open source software is widely used for building non-commercial and private applications, there is enough scope for open source application development for commercial purposes. We can develop applications such as accounting, content management system, and enterprise resource planning (ERP), business intelligence, supply chain and many other applications, based on the scripting and programming languages such as PHP, Java, Perl and Python.