Everyday, I am more and more impressed with the open source community and what it offers to the world. Open source is a place for computer hobbyists or “geeks” to showcase their project to the world with complete transparency. In addition, I am big believer that open source will change software developments in the future and for the good. Rather than taking a pessimistic view-point that open source may hinder hired software engineers from losing job or value, I think it actually makes them more worthy with the ability to quickly get exposed to new projects, view source code for free, and try new things without worrying about intellectual rights and protection.
The debatable issue between open source versus proprietary software is not only about whether software should be free, but more importantly what is the best methodology that software should be written. From the software life cycle standpoint, in my opinion, open source developments create understandable requirements and specifications, more robust software, and better software releases. After all, developers of the open source community are doing this on their own spare time (with dedication) and these programmers span across the globe and collaborate without any “face-to-face” interactions or fixed weekly meetings. I think Friedman is right that the world is transforming into a “flat playing field” and in time, this will only be more prevalent. And this, I think, is good news for the open source community.
I hope to become a contributor to the open source community as well in the near future.
