what exactly is "open source"?

Question

something about the internet but thats all I know...educate me please

Answer 1

"Open Source" is a term given to software projects that allow you to access the source code. It is a great way to allow other developers to have input into the project and offer suggestions on improvements and enhancements to the program's code and functionality.

See WIKI:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source

Answer 2

"Open source" is a characteristic of software. It means that the software maker provides the original programming source code for the software (in addition to the version that can be loaded and run). The customer is free to read and modify this source code for themselves.

Computer software is first written in an understandable programming language. This is called "source code".

When the program is complete, the source code is formatted into executable code which can be run on the computer.

When you buy software, you usually get only the executable code. You can run it, but you cannot see what is in the source code.

Open source software is relatively rare. It most cases the software maker wants to keep the source code secret, so that it cannot be duplicated or changed by other people.

Good Luck

Answer 3

Open Source refers to the distribution of source code (the stuff that the programmers write) along with the program binaries (the executable files - on Windows, the .exe files). It is usually distributed under the GNU General Public License ( http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html ). Open Source software is free as in speech, not as in beer, although it usually is that too.

Some well known open source projects are: Firefox and Opera (web browsers), The GIMP (graphics program), and OpenOffice (office suite).

Answer 4

Open Source in a general sense refers to anything where the primary information is publicly available. In terms of computing Open Source usually refers to Open Source Software. This is software whose source code is freely available under an Open Source Licence.

Two common open source licences are:

GPL - the Gnu General Public Licence (copyleft)
BSD - the Berkley Source Distribution (permissive)

These represent two "camps" in open source software. the GPL represents the copyleft "free as in speech, not free as in beer"

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

while the BSD licence permits more commercial uses of the code (such as not sharing your changes, and releasing the source code as a closed source product for which you charge):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSD_license

A big advantage that open source has is the community which can be built around it. Successful open source project attract many developers from around the world with different skill sets. Online code repositories to aid in OSS development have sprung up, such as SourceForge:

http://sourceforge.net/

Much of what you use on the internet is open source. 80% of the web servers are running Apache web server, and a large number of web pages are written in PHP, both of which are open source products.

Answer 5

a programing code that is considered "shareable" or something that not really neccessary to ask permission to use. Open source would not violates a rules if you decided to reverse engineer on it.

Answer 6

That source of information or data is available.

Answer 7

this link will answer all ur questions on open source
http://www.opensource.org/