David Vs. Goliath

In today’s lecture, we were immense in the constant battle between the two main contenders of software, open source and proprietary software; definitely a David versus Goliath situation. Biased maybe, but when you can link most attributes to one of a major gas company where they focus on profits and market domination. Focusing on one of the strongest points of open source is the ability to cut all the red tape on the road to software upgrades. With the flexibility of pushing forward the development without having to wait for permission and without having to take any breaks (the rate of software development is increased). Main differences between proprietary software and open source are that open source software, is that it leaves the door open to programmers or anyone with any programming creativity to help improve the software for the greater good of the digital community. Definitely a hidden bonus when the dominate software on any users system is open source. With more regular updates than that of a software giant like Microsoft where they expect any little improvement to be worth a profit, users of open source gain the ability to stay in the development loop of software growth picking up all the extras and bonus functionality that comes with the power of a digital community backing. Unlike proprietary software, where it has been seen in the past where to recycle the same software code with minor security “enhancements” to only resell it as a completely new software operating system and expecting a tasty little profit (especially when they lock other programmers out of their software by means of Copyright infringements and the full strength of the law “money fines”. Open source defiantly the little guy here, trying to get the word out, that most users that are out there are completely unaware of the benefits of open source.