Have you ever happened to think why cannot we inspect or modify
some of the software? What feature makes them different that we cannot make
changes in them?
With going digital more and more, there are different solutions
for software developers or programmer to choose for different software and
programs.
One of these important, popular approaches available for software
developers to give particular options to
consumers and users, is choosing between “open source” or “closed source”
options.
Being open source or closed source, provides
different properties for special software and each type of them, get their own
pros and cons.
In this article, we are going to discuss open
source software widely and see if there are any pros and cons for this feature.
What
does open source software mean?
Simply put, the term “open source” means
something that is allowed to being shared, inspected and modified. In other
words, computer programs which anyone could make changes in or create another
updated version upon, are called open source software or programs.
Basically, open source programs are usually
free and developers could have an allowed access to the source code, where they
have the possibility to make changes in software or build upon it.
By that I mean other developers are able to
add intended features, enhance program’s errors and improve its performance.
For example, we have many open source
software with which we meet our daily needs. Programs like Mozilla Firefox,
Libreffice and Chromium are all created with open source software approach.
On the other hand, we have closed source
software that are also known as “proprietary software”. These type of programs
have closed source and just the owners of them have access to the codes for
making any change in them.
Some examples of closed source programs
include some products of Microsoft, Apple or Adobe.
In this article we are not going into detail
about closed source programs and we just mentioned a few examples of this
software to distinguish the differences between this two kinds of approaches.
Here are some pros and cons of using open
source software, just in case you are not sure about which one to choose.
The Pros
of Open Source Software
Considering open source software has its own
pros and cons, depending on your circumstances and goals, you can take a close
look on pros and see if it is worth choosing.
Initial
cost
The first thing about open source software
that makes many developers use this approach, is that these types of programs
have little, or no upfront costs.
In fact, people just need to download the
required code from a valid and legal source and that’s it. That’s why we
recommend you to use open source programs if you cannot dedicate a big amount
of money to another costly solution like closed source software.
But you should always have this important
note in your mind that not all of the open source programs are completely free.
In such cases, software include a little cost but if you are thinking about
affordable solutions, they are still a better choice.
Saving
time and money
Another thing about open source programs, is
that they could save much more time and money of companies than other kinds of
programs.
These software help different companies a
lot, with providing a ready to use program without no other costs.
Besides, nearly all of the open source software
are designed to work with almost any platform. This advantage gives the
opportunity of living longer to your hardware, so you are not required to replace
it over and over again.
Reliability
Another benefit of using open source
software, is their reliability. By “reliability”, we mean there are thousands
of developers and experts all around the world, who are constantly enhancing
and improving these software.
So with this huge amount of enhancing,
getting fixed and removing errors over the time, we can see the most
reliability in these software.
In other words, the more developers and
programmers could have access to the codes of open source software, the bigger
the chance of recognizing and fixing existing errors is.
This is one the most important cons of closed
source programs, because a handful number of paid experts who are working for
the owners of program, may not successfully recognize errors. Surely, another
pair of eyes is always better than one.
As a result, users could always notice
notable changes and fixed bugs in open source software and could take
advantages of using these error-free programs every now and then.
Longevity
Since everybody in the world could have
access to the source code of open source programs and they are allowed to
enhance them constantly, these types of software are kind of everlasting.
This means if ever a bug or error is found in
the program, you don’t have to wait for vendor confinements for getting rid of
bugs. Instead, there are thousands of developers and experts all around the
world, who can access to the source code easily and fix existing, potential
errors.
On the contrary, if a commercial company
creates a closed source software and suddenly goes out of business,
applicability of the program will fade away and users lose all the support and
everything else the company was handling.
But these kinds of problems do not apply to
open source software, as there are always many developers who are taking a good
care of the program, won’t let it lose its utility and they are constantly
fixing bugs.
As you see, this vital advantages makes open
source software somehow everlasting, providing the option for users to use them
for a long time.
Security
The fifth advantage of using an open source
program, is that they are highly secure. But why is that?
As we mentioned before, because of many
experts and developers having access to source code of open source programs,
they are able to easily fix existing errors and bugs in the program. As a
result, we could barely find bugs in software programmed using this approach.
That’s why we consider open source programs
as a more safe and secure programs, since there is literally no problem, error
hurting our system. So there is no reason to worry about.
Besides, this is not the case with closed
source programs, since the ability of having access to source code of program
is just provided to the owner of program. As a result, in case of existing a
vulnerability in program, it will take months for large companies to deal with
and fix them.
Flexibility
The last benefit of considering open source
software for daily usage, is their high flexibility.
This type of approach, allows users to make
difference, modify and personalize the program in order to meet their needs.
In other words, individuals have the freedom
to the remove the options they don’t want and add the other features that suit
their needs to the program.
In contrast, the users who choose closed
source programs over open source ones, does not have this kind of ability and have
to make use of these programs, keeping up with whatever feature they provide.
Cons of
Closed Source Software
So far, we took a close look on the most
benefits open source provide for users. But the question is, is open source
development all advantages or include both pros and cons?
Let’s have a look on some of the most
considerable cons of using open source software for daily usage.
Long
term cost
Before anything else, we are going to check
out the long term cost of using open source software. Although making use of
these kinds of programs is more affordable than closed source ones, sometimes
future costs of these programs stack up.
By that, we mean in case of occurring some
kind of special problem that needs immediate help, it depends on you to either
hurry up and take essential actions and spend enough money on fixing it, or
leave it and just let it go.
Sometimes you cannot make the vendor’s chain
fix the problem, thus you have to deal with it on your own. As a result, it
might require you to spend a huge amount of money to fix the existing problem
by either hiring an expert or dealing with it in house.
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Support
The other downside of employing open source
software, is their lack of support. Although not all of open source programs
lack of support on behalf of the developer company, they does not possess user
manual in case users have some problems using them.
This way, we users cannot benefit from access
to experts if anything major happens and we don’t have essential skills to deal
with it.
Security
How can security counts as both pros and cons
as the same time? We are here to tell you. As you noticed earlier, security was
one the important benefits of using open source software, as bugs and errors
existing in program will be recognized so early.
But this feature could be considered as a
flaw when it comes to having a limited and controlled environment.
As we mentioned before, there is no
supervised area for making all of the changes in open source programs. As a
result, when thousands of developers could have access to source code, there
might be some malicious intentions too.
Usability
Most of the time, open source programs are
not as user friendly as closed source ones.
And this issue could stop some users from
using open source programs who care about this option a lot.
Conclusion
Having to make a choice between open source
programs and closed source ones, has always been a major dilemma for many
users.
But if you consider all of pros and cons of
using one of these options and also your expectations from a software, you are
able to choose more easily.
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