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 Viteb
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.