If we observe carefully, there are actually a good number of open-source communities across the globe. Software industries are increasingly adapting to these open-source platforms. So, what is open-source software? How is it instrumental in website development?
‘Open-source is a program whose source code is free for the public to modify and upgrade to meet the future demands.’ The main concept behind open-source software is to study, modify, and redistribute. Web developers, or to be more up front, the software developers prefer working with open-source software than proprietary, why?
Actually, there is a good number of reasons, but before knowing them let us know about the contrasting term of open-source.
Open-Source Vs Proprietary Software (Closed Source)
In simple layman words, we can call them as an open-book Vs a closely guarded secret. Open-source software is something that belongs to no one but is free for everyone.
On the other hand, proprietary software does belong to someone (say a company), where the source code will be well-guarded from external involvement.
Benefits of Open-Source Websites
WordPress, Joomla, Mambo, Drupal are some of the popular open-source platforms that our web developers love to work with. For the record, it is necessary to know that peer reviews have a major say in the acceptance of any open-source software. Now, let us go through the list of benefits.
- STABILITY
- ‘More stable and better supported’ a caption to introduce open-software seems to be perfect. Even big brands like Yahoo, Google are built on these free-software, and the cost advantage is the not the only factor because we have more to it.
- While making websites enterprise-ready, developers may be compelled to make changes to source code. Unlike proprietary software, which actually restricts for such actions, open-source software allows for modifications. Furthermore, any new version created will only be optional and web developers will not face any sort of version or file format issues, as the platform has large community support.
- AUDITABILITY
- How secure is the platform for your website? The risk of not tracking the vulnerabilities will be there definitely, and be it can be through either open-source or proprietary.
- In the case of proprietary software, developers have to take in the word of a vendor blindly (if he tells that his software is secure and threat-free). Any developer cannot cut open the software to check as it is legally not allowed. Open-source software, on the other hand, can be tested rigorously for security threats and inconsistencies.
- SECURITY
- Open-source software has large communities tracking it and any kind of security threat developers will easily patch or fix the software. Websites developed on an open-source platform are said to be more secure than the closed source software.
- For any software, it is an advantage of being in a collaborative environment. Every member of the community can make the changes required to make the software more powerful and secure.
- COST
- Open-source software doesn’t demand royalty fees and nor is for sale. It’s like you are getting benefits at zero cost.
- ‘Everything is in the name’, and it’s definitely not wrong if you call open-source platforms as developer’s platform. No upgrade fees or management costs to be spent. Proprietary software, however, will cost a fortune and will consume more dollars if there is a need for version upgrade or security patch up.
