Opening the Door to Open Source Software

Did you ever come across a feature or annoyance in a piece of software that you wished you could tweak so that it better met your needs? For example, I wish Microsoft would allow end users (you and me) to somehow upload our handwriting and create a unique font in Word named after our own handwriting. There are probably software products on the market that will allow us to do that, but wouldn't it be cool to get "behind the scenes" and make that change ourselves? That "behind the scenes" area may also be called the source code that tells an application what to do and how to appear on your computer. You and I cannot modify this code, and we certainly can't look at it, copy it, modify it and sell our own version of that software. If your programming skills are as dull as mine are, that's probably a good thing...

Manufacturers obviously see this as a good thing too. They don't want us nosing around their secret code that creates the software that we use every day. This advantage also allows developers, manufacturers and distributors to control the quality, features and upgrades of their product, which seems fair to me. I have written software in the past and I would never want my users going in and modifying the code that makes it run. Why? Because as soon as I give users the ability to make changes, they would have problems with the software, and then what? They would come running to me to try to fix it and I would have no clue how to fix what they broke. Many companies see this same disadvantage, which creates one of the biggest worries users have about open source software (OSS): What will happen to technical support? Generally, support is left up to a common community of developers and users that works together to resolve issues.

By now you're probably guessing then, that open source software must mean that you and I can get behind the scenes and make our own modifications to the source code that the developer created. That is correct. In fact, manufacturers of these types of programs actually encourage end-users to make modifications to their software. Why? Well think about it - How cool would it be if you and I could get behind the scenes and make a product such as Word behave exactly the way we wanted it to? Applications such as Modzilla Firefox, which allows the user to create their own version of Firefox, believe that the user will become married to the product, thus creating an application they cannot live without. (Firefox is an Internet Brower, such as Internet Explorer or Netscape.)

There are certain criteria that must be met in order for the distribution of a product to be considered open source. A few of these criteria include:

• Free Distribution (not necessarily free of cost)

• Integrity of the Author's Source Code

• No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups

Probably one of the most successful uses of OSS can be seen in the major operating system, Unix. (Other examples of operating systems are Windows and Mac.)

More familiar uses of open source, on a far less technical scale, include blogs and message boards. While blogs and message boards are not actual applications or programs you install on your computer, you may be familiar with how they work. Blogs are areas that allow visitors to websites to type information into a box that posts that person's opinions, personal expression, etc., for the rest of the world. These posts are displayed in reverse chronological order so that visitors to that site may read what others are writing. Similarly, message boards allow visitors to post an idea or question, which prompts others to contribute answers or suggestions (just like we do here at OfficeArrow). The "open source" idea here is that anyone can quickly and easily contribute to a technical entity such as a website, without having to know anything about coding or developing websites.

In short, the average Josephine Office Person will probably not have much use for open source software, but it is good to know what it is and how it works. Should you become interested in the back side of an application and how to make modifications therein, now you know that the opportunity to do so is sometimes available.