Why is open source software becoming very popular towards society?
The users and consumers prefer open source software because open source software does not burden
them in the context of cost. This is because open source software is freely accessible and does not
require the users to pay anything. The impact of free open source software is that it can be benefited by
the people who can't afford to buy commercial software. Nevertheless, the user of this open source
software will not experience good customer service because this software is not managed by any
company.
Next, the user also tends to use open source software because the software can be a part of learning for
the new programmers. The programmers of free and open source software are highly encouraged to
download, view and change the source code. Many talented programmers can be founded as they
practice their programming and coding knowledge on this software. However, to edit this software, it
require abundance knowledge in coding thus limiting people that can edit this software.
Furthermore, the open source software is highly secure as well as other software. As this software is
accessible in the term of coding and whatnot, the user can examine the source code and spot the
security problem in it. The users will be aware of their security situation and can make informed
decisions about what products to use and which to avoid. Though it is the security problem can be
spotted in the source code, the source code is somehow tricky and to study it is not as easy as we
thought.
Another point is the open source code has its own intellectual property as it supposed to. As we know,
there are many users that can study the source code and edit it. This open source code give credits to
the programmers involve. Thus, the programmers will be more appreciated and will be given intellectual
property in every single thing they did to the software. However, the Open-source operating systems
like Linux cannot be learned in a day. They require effort and possibly training from your side before you
are able to master them. You may need to hire a trained person to make things easier, but this will incur
additional costs. This is why the programmers want the intellectual property as it is not easy to edit the
source code.
Last point is about the reliability of this software. Open source is not dependent on the company or
author that originally created it. Even if the company fails, the code continues to exist and be developed
by its users. This can benefit the users as the users can still continue use this software without have to
change to another options. Another side of this issue is that the company will not manage this software
thus it need 100% effort from the user to improve this software.
