Word press. Firefox. Android phones. What do they all have in common? Open Source. Let’s break down how open source works. Imagine you have a plot of land. Your neighbor built a house called Instagram. Oh ya, it’s really pretty. Filters. Colors. But when you ask your neighbor Mr. Instagram on advice, on how you should build a house, he doesn’t share any information. So you know what, you decide you’re gonna go figure out how to build your own house. First you build the structure and the walls, because I mean, that’s all you know how to do. Then you decide to share how you built the structure with everyone. You’ve made it Open Source. Then you make a call to the world, “Anyone wanna help me build a roof? Anyone know how to make a door?”.
People from everywhere in LEGOLAND start pitching in. They share their own blueprints for doors, for roofs, and even furniture. Some specialists even join in and fix the errors they see. Now this whole structure is open source and people are using this, for their own homes. Changing it slightly, or significantly to suit their needs. So take a look at this open source community online. All of these individual projects are like houses in the lego example. These are the individuals that contributed to the open source project, Let’s click in here.
And you’ll see all the blueprints, and all the components that make up this “house” or project. And you can see when the last time was that someone built something towards the project. So here are 4 things to know about open source. One of the most impressive open source tools Linux (that’s the Linux logo). Linux was an open source alternative to computer operating systems like Windows. It was started by Linus, released back in 199. After becoming the first open source operating system, it’s been adopted by thousands of individuals since then. But did you know, Linux’s greatest success: Android. That’s right open source is on half of your phones. Some open source tools let you remix the code to make something new. Some let you redistribute the open source and make money of commercializing it. And some let you do both: both remix and make money, so long as whatever you make from the open source carries the exact same license. 3. Open Source can make money. You can download open source software for free but sometimes software requires maintenance, and people make money off the maintenance.
WordPress is the perfect example of an open source tool that does make money. This is the WordPress that you know, but you can see they charge for a lot of their services. It’s their services that make money. If you actually look for the code base of the wordpress tool, you can get that for free. A lot of us don’t know how to install that on a server, so they do it for us. And it is that service that makes money. In the spirit of open source I am making this video Creative Commons, meaning that you can take this video, you can remix it, you can do whatever you want – as long as it carries the same license.
Creative Commons is very similar to what is going on in the programming world with open source, but it is more for creative works. Let’s see what you make to celebrate Open Source and spread digital literacy. .
As found on Youtube
