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30 Widely Used Open Source Software

Suggested Reading Time: 10 min

Copyright belongs to Xiamen University Malaysia Open Source Community Promotion Group (for Community Service course)

*WeChat Public Account: XMUM_OSC

It is undeniable that open source technology is widely use in business. Companies who lead the trend in IT field, such as Google and Microsoft, accept and promote using open source software. Partnerships with companies such as MongoDB, Redis Labs, Neo4j, and Confluent of Google Cloud are good examples of this.

Red Hat, the originator of linux, the open source company, firstly launched an investigation into the “The State of Enterprise Open Source” and released the investigation report on April 16, 2019. This report is a result of interviews with 950 IT pioneers around the world. The survey areas include the United States, the United Kingdom, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific region, aiming to understand corporate open source profiles in different geographic regions.

Does the company believe that open source is of strategic significance? This is the question that Red Hat first raised and most wanted to understand. The survey results show that the vast majority of 950 respondents believe that open source is of strategic importance to the company's overall infrastructure software strategy. Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst said at the beginning of the survey report, “The most exciting technological innovation that has occurred in this era is taking shape in the open source community.”

Up to now, the investigation has continued to the third round, and the results have been published on February 24, 2021.

Some of the most open source projects favored by IT companies. These are mainly enterprise-oriented application software projects, covering several categories such as web servers, big data and cloud computing, cloud storage, operating systems, and databases.

Web Servers: Nginx, Lighttpd, Tomcat and Apache

1. Nginx

Nginx (engine x) is a high-performance HTTP and reverse proxy web server developed by the Russians. It also provides IMAP/POP3/SMTP services. Its characteristics are that it occupies less memory and has strong concurrency. The concurrency of Nginx performs better in the same type of web server. Many people use Nginx as a load balancer and web reverse proxy.

Supported operating systems: Windows, Linux and OS X.

Link: http://nginx.org/

2. Lighttpd

Lighttpd is a lightweight open source web server software whose fundamental purpose is to provide a safe, fast, compatible and flexible web server environment specifically for high-performance websites. It has the characteristics of very low memory overhead, low cpu occupancy rate, good performance and abundant modules. It is widely used in some embedded web servers.

Supported operating systems: Windows, Linux and OS X

Link: https://www.lighttpd.net/

3. Tomcat

Tomcat server is a free and open source Web application server, which is a lightweight application server, mainly used to run JSP pages and Servlets. Because Tomcat has advanced technology, stable performance, and free of charge, it is loved by Java enthusiasts and recognized by some software developers, making it a popular Web application server.

Supported operating systems: Windows, Linux and OS X

Link: https://tomcat.apache.org/

4. Apache HTTP Server

Apache HTTP Server (Apache for short) is an open source web server of the Apache Software Foundation. It can run on most computer operating systems. Because of its cross-platform and security, it has been widely used since 1996. The most popular Web server system on the Internet since the beginning of the year. It is said that 55.3% of all websites are currently supported by Apache.

Supported operating systems: Windows, Linux and OS X

Link: https://httpd.apache.org/

Big Data and Cloud Computing: Hadoop、Docker、Spark、Storm

5. Hadoop

Hadoop is a distributed system infrastructure developed by the Apache Foundation. It is recognized as a set of industry big data standard open source software, which provides massive data processing capabilities in a distributed environment. Almost all mainstream vendors focus on Hadoop development tools, open source software, commercial tools, and technical services. Hadoop has become the standard framework for big data.

Supported operating systems: Windows, Linux and OS X

Link: http://hadoop.apache.org/

6. Docker

Docker is an open source application container engine. Developers can package their own applications into containers, and then migrate to docker applications on other machines, which can achieve rapid deployment and are widely used in the field of big data. Basically, companies that do big data will use this tool.

Supported operating systems: Windows, Linux and OS X

Link: https://www.docker.com/

7. Spark

Apache Spark is a fast and universal computing engine designed for large-scale data processing. Spark is similar to the general parallel framework of Hadoop MapReduce. Apache Spark claims, "It runs programs in memory up to 100 times faster than Hadoop MapReduce and 10 times faster on disk. Spark is better suited for data mining and machine learning algorithms that require iterative MapReduce.

Supported operating systems: Windows, Linux and OS X

Link: http://spark.apache.org/

8. Storm

Storm is a Twitter open source distributed real-time big data processing system, which is called the real-time version of Hadoop by the industry. As more and more scenarios cannot tolerate the high latency of Hadoop's MapReduce, such as website statistics, recommendation systems, early warning systems, financial systems (high-frequency trading, stocks), etc., big data real-time processing solutions (stream computing) The application is becoming more and more extensive, and it is now the latest breaking point in the field of distributed technology, and Storm is the leader and mainstream in stream computing technology.

Supported operating systems: Windows, Linux and OS X

Link: https://storm.apache.org/

9. Cloud Foundry

Cloud Foundry is the industry's first open source PaaS cloud platform. It supports multiple frameworks, languages, runtime environments, cloud platforms and application services, enabling developers to deploy and expand applications in a few seconds without worrying about anything Infrastructure issues. It claims to be "built by industry leaders for industry leaders," and its backers include IBM, Pivotal, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, VMware, Intel, SAP and EMC.

Supported operating systems: Independent of operating system

Link: https://www.cloudfoundry.org/

10. CloudStack

CloudStack is an open source cloud computing platform with high availability and scalability, as well as an open source cloud computing solution. It can accelerate the deployment, management, and configuration of highly scalable public and private clouds (IaaS). Using CloudStack as the foundation, data center operators can quickly and easily create cloud services through the existing infrastructure.

Supported operating systems: Independent of operating system

Link: https://www.cloudfoundry.org/

11. OpenStack

OpenStack is an open source cloud computing management platform project, a combination of a series of software open source projects. It is an authorized open source code project developed and initiated by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and Rackspace. OpenStack provides scalable and elastic cloud computing services for private clouds and public clouds. The project goal is to provide a cloud computing management platform that is simple to implement, scalable, rich, and standardized. This very popular cloud computing platform claims that "hundreds of big brands in the world" rely on it every day.

Supported operating systems: Independent of operating system

Link: https://www.openstack.org/

Cloud Storage: Gluster, FreeNAS, Lustre, Ceph

12. Gluster

GlusterFS is a highly scalable and scalable distributed file system suitable for data-intensive tasks such as cloud storage and media streaming. All standard POSIX interfaces are implemented, and fuse is used to realize virtualization, making users look like local disks. Able to handle thousands of clients.

Supported operating system: Windows and Linux

Link: https://www.gluster.org/

13. FreeNAS

FreeNAS is a set of free and open source NAS servers, which can turn an ordinary PC into a network storage server. The software is based on FreeBSD, Samba and PHP, supports CIFS (samba), FTP, NFS protocols, Software RAID (0,1,5) and web interface setting tools. Users can access the storage server through Windows, Macs, FTP, SSH, and Network File System (NFS). FreeNAS can be installed on the hard disk or removable media USB Flash Disk. The FreeNAS server has a promising future. It is an excellent choice for building a simple network storage server

Supported operating systems: Independent of operating system

Link: http://www.freenas.org/

14. Lustre

Lustre is an open source, distributed parallel file system software platform, which has the characteristics of high scalability, high performance, and high availability. The construction goal of Lustre is to provide a globally consistent POSIX-compliant namespace for large-scale computing systems, which include the most powerful high-performance computing systems in the world. It supports hundreds of PB of data storage space, and supports hundreds of GB/s or even several TB/s of concurrent aggregate bandwidth. Some of the first users to adopt it include several major national laboratories in the United States: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Supported operating system: Linux

Link: http://lustre.org/

15. Ceph

Ceph is a distributed file system designed for excellent performance, reliability and scalability. It is the earliest project dedicated to the development of the next generation of high-performance distributed file systems. With the development of cloud computing, Ceph took advantage of the spring breeze of OpenStack, and then became one of the most concerned projects in the open source community.

Supported operating system: Linux

Link: https://ceph.com/

Operating System: CentOS, Ubuntu

16. CentOS

CentOS (Community Enterprise Operating System) is one of the Linux distributions, which is compiled from the source code released by Red Hat Enterprise Linux in accordance with the open source regulations. Since it comes from the same source code, some servers that require high stability use CentOS instead of the commercial version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The difference between the two is that CentOS is completely open source.

Link: http://www.centos.org/

17. Ubuntu

Ubuntu is also open source and has a huge community power. Users can easily get help from the community and provide a popular Linux distribution. There are multiple versions: desktop version, server version, cloud version, mobile version, tablet version And the Internet of Things version. The claimed users include Amazon, IBM, Wikipedia and Nvidia.

Link: http://www.ubuntu.com/

Database: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Cassandra, CouchDB, Neo4j

18. MySQL

MySQL is a relational database written in C/C++. It claims to be "the most popular open source database in the world". It is favored by many Internet companies. In addition to the free community version, it also has a variety of paid versions. Although it is free and open source, its performance is sufficiently guaranteed. Many domestic IT companies are using MySQL.

Supported operating system: Windows, Linux, Unix and OS X

Link: https://www.mysql.com/

19. PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL is a very powerful client/server relational database management system with open source code. The well-known Huawei Gauss database and Tencent's TBase database are both developed on the basis of this database. All the codes of the best Alibaba OceanBase database in China are independently developed. Although it is not developed on the basis of PostgreSQL, it should also draw on many features and advantages of PostgreSQL.

Supported operating system: Windows, Linux, Unix and OS X

Link: https://www.postgresql.org/

20. MongoDB

MongoDB is a NoSQL database, a database based on distributed file storage. Written by C++ language. Designed to provide scalable high-performance data storage solutions for applications. MongoDB is a product between relational and non-relational databases. Among non-relational databases, MongoDB is the most versatile and most similar to relational databases. Users include Foursquare, Forbes, Pebble, Adobe, LinkedIn, eHarmony and other companies. Provide paid professional version and enterprise version.

Supported operating system: Windows, Linux, OS X and Solaris

Link: https://www.mongodb.org/

21. Cassandra

This NoSQL database was developed by Facebook, and its users include Apple, CERN, Comcast, Electronic Harbor, GitHub, GoDaddy, Hulu, Instagram, Intuit, Netflix, Reddit and other technology companies. It supports extremely large data sets and claims to have very high performance and outstanding durability and flexibility. Support can be obtained through a third party.

Supported operating systems: Independent of operating system

Link: https://cassandra.apache.org/

22. CouchDB

CouchDB is a document-oriented database system developed in Erlang. This NoSQL database stores data in JSON documents. Such documents can be queried through HTTP and processed with JavaScript. CouchDB is now owned by IBM, and it provides a software version supported by professionals. Users include: Samsung, Akamai, Expedia, Microsoft Game Studios and other companies.

Supported operating systems: Windows, Linux, OS X and Android

Link: https://couchdb.apache.org/

23. Neo4j

Neo4J is a high-performance NOSQL graph database that stores structured data on the network instead of in tables. It claims to be "the world's leading graph database" for fraud detection, recommendation engines, social networking sites, master data management, and More areas. Users include eBay, Walmart, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, Accenture, CrunchBase, eHarmony, Care.com and many other enterprise organizations.

Supported operating system: Windows and Linux

Link: https://neo4j.com/

Developing Tools and Components

24. Bugzilla

Bugzilla is the darling of the open source community, users include Mozilla, Linux Foundation, GNOME, KDE, Apache, LibreOffice, Open Office, Eclipse, Red Hat, Novell and other companies. Important features of this software bugtracker include: advanced search functions, email notifications, scheduled reports, time tracking, excellent security and more features.

Supported operating system: Windows, Linux and OS X

Link: https://www.bugzilla.org/

25. Eclipse

The most well-known of the Eclipse project is that it is a popular integrated development environment (IDE) for Java. It also provides IDEs for C/C++ and PHP, as well as a large number of development tools. The main supporters include Guanqun Technology, Google, IBM, Oracle, Red Hat and SAP.

Supported operating systems: Independent of operating system

Link: https://www.eclipse.org/

26. Ember.js

Ember.js is an open source JavaScript client-side framework for developing Web applications and using the MVC architecture pattern. This framework is used to "build ambitious Web applications" and aims to improve work efficiency for JavaScript developers. The official website shows that users include Yahoo, Square, Livingsocial, Groupon, Twitch, TED, Netflix, Heroku and Microsoft.

Supported operating systems: Independent of operating system

Link: https://emberjs.com/

27. Node.js

Node is a development platform that allows JavaScript to run on the server. It makes JavaScript a scripting language on par with server-side languages such as PHP, Python, Perl, and Ruby. It allows developers to use JavaScript to write server-side applications. The development work was previously controlled by Jwoyent and is now overseen by the Node.js Foundation. Users include IBM, Microsoft, Yahoo, SAP, LinkedIn, PayPal and Netflix.

Supported operating system: Windows, Linux and OS X

Link: https://nodejs.org/

28. React Native

React Native was developed by Facebook. This framework can be used to build native mobile applications using JavaScript and React JavaScript libraries (also developed by Facebook). Other users include: "Discovery" channel and CBS Sports News Network.

Supported operating system: OS X

Link: https://facebook.github.io/react-native/

29. Ruby on Rails

Ruby on Rails is a framework that makes it easy for you to develop, deploy, and maintain web applications. This web development framework is extremely popular among developers, and it claims to be "optimized to ensure programmers' satisfaction and continuous and efficient work." Users include companies such as Basecamp, Twitter, Shopify, and GitHub.

Supported operating system: Windows, Linux and OS X

Link: https://rubyonrails.org/

Middleware

30. JBoss

JBoss is an open source application server based on J2EE. JBoss code follows the LGPL license and can be used for free in any commercial application. JBoss is a container and server that manages EJB. It supports EJB 1.1, EJB 2.0 and EJB3 specifications, but JBoss core services do not include WEB containers that support servlet/JSP, and are generally used in conjunction with Tomcat or Jetty. JBoss middleware includes a variety of lightweight, cloud-friendly tools that combine, integrate, and automate various enterprise applications and systems at the same time. Users include: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Nissan, Cisco, Crown Group, AMD and other companies.

Supported operating system: Linux

Link: https://www.jboss.org/

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Licenses Introduction

Suggested Reading Time: 12 min

Copyright belongs to Xiamen University Malaysia Open Source Community Promotion Group (for Community Service course)

*WeChat Public Account: XMUM_OSC

Follow the preceding part, it seems open source software is necessary in our daily life. Microsoft, Amazon, Tencent, Alibaba and other well-known companies are users of Linux, a widely used open source software. The Android phones we use today are also based on Linux. This article will discuss the trade-offs and protocols of open source software.

 What Rights Does Open Source Software Give Up?

Take the common GPLv3 license agreement as an example, the software using the GPLv3 open source license. This agreement guarantees the software users four freedoms: freedom to use, freedom to modify, freedom to share and freedom to share the modified version.

Under the Copyright Act, briefly speaking, open source software conditionally waives the following rights.

Copying rights: Users can copy and run software.

Protect the right of integrity and modification: users can modify the software.

Distribution right, information network dissemination right: users can provide copies to the public in various ways.

Adapt rights: users re-customize the software to form new software. However, when distributing the source code, the distributor should provide the copyright notice, the GPLv3 agreement notice and additional terms, the non-warranty notice and the original GPLv3 text. If a modified version of the source code is disseminated, the communicator must not only comply with the above provisions, but also provide the modification and the date of the modification, other additional conditions, grant the entire software the GPLv3 license (the embodiment of infection), and indicate the relevant legal notices in the user interface. If a program is disseminated, that is, a program generated by the source code, the propagator must not only comply with the above requirements, but must also disclose the source code in a specific way. The most important condition attached to the GPLv3 agreement is "infectious," which means that the use of all or part of the GPLv3 open source software in the developed software will make the new software also become GPLv3 open source software. GPLv3 makes no explicit mention of authorship, which means that open-source software does not waive authorship. In addition, GPLv3 does not mention the right to the software name, so the software name is subject to the Trademark Law. For some commercial abuse, the author can consider to defend his rights from the perspective of trademark.

 Commercial and Licensing of Open Source Software

There are some common queries of Open Source Software: Is open source software commercially available? Now that open source software is so popular, can it be used as a commercial software? How does it work?

If you're using open source software and you're trying to sell it for money, or you're trying to advertise it, you can, if you're brave enough. What do you mean?Open source software all have the use agreement, your secondary processing commercial software, as early as in the open source agreement to write clear, open source agreement has many kinds, allow the commercial agreement or the majority, regardless of whether you are commercial, but, allow the closed source agreement is not so much, and your commercial software must be closed source.

What will happen if you use them really in business? If you hide well, outsiders can not recognize that your software is using open source components, then nothing happen. If you are being seen through, but the corresponding open source author doesn’t know this situation, and that's fine. If open source author knows, but is lazy to prosecute you, also have nothing to do. If the author sent you a lawyer's letter, but you have the capacity of winning the case, you are still fine. If you lose the case, but you are a deadbeat, you are still fine.

MIT, BSD is business friendly.There are also some foreign companies that rely on open source software, regardless of the protocol you choose, using the way of service charge. It can be commercial, but you have to open source it as well.

A lot of open source software is used in business, but most do not make money by selling software, but earn fees, such as training how to use or have a problem how to solve, if the customer has other special additional requirements can be customized development, these services are generally charge, also have on the advertising or donation revenue in the software. The commercialization of open source software depends on the relevant open source agreements. Some software is not allowed for commercial use. Some software is allowed but you can not change the code to re-release. Some software if you use open source code, then your software should be open source, and so on.

As is mentioned above, the modification, distribution, and other operations of open source software, while free, is not unconditional. Instead, it is subject to the rules of various (mostly American) private open source software groups, known as licenses.Each license can be thought of as a lengthy license contract.This section provides a brief description of common licenses.

 Mainly Used Licenses of Open Source

1. GPL

The GNU GPL (General Public License) provides the source code for any software and its derivatives, allowing them to be freely used, modified, and distributed. The GPL is the foundational license of the open source software movement. With the GPL, the derivative software modified by the software is still required to apply the GPL, which means that the GPL is contagious. In other words, if a piece of code in the entire software is GPL-compliant, then the entire software must also be GPL-compliant and open source -- which is not very business-friendly. Therefore, when developers do not have license awareness but use a contagious license like the GPL for commercial software products, there is no doubt that there will be a large legal risk.

2. LGPL

The infectivity of the GPL causes problems for the libraries used by the software. For example, according to the GPL, if a piece of software is linked to a library of the GPL, the software and the library to which it is linked are legally derived software, so the derived software needs to be open source. To address this flaw in the GPL, there is the LGPL license. When a library is released of the LGPL, the software linked to the library can be LGPL or GPL compliant; in other words, the source code can not be disclosed. This feature of the LGPL removes barriers to the commercialization of software with the GPL.

3. MPL

MPL stands for Mozilla Public License. MPL is similar to LGPL and a weak license between the GPL license and the lenient license. The main difference is that LGPL is for libraries, while MPL is for individual files. In the case of mixing your independently developed files with other files into one project, the independently developed files are also required to be open source while the other file conform to the GPL license; While other files conform to the MPL license, independently developed files can have their source code hidden. This means that files accord with MPL can be combined with closed source files, and files of MPL will continue to maintain their MPL state.

4. BSD

Berkeley Software Distribution License BSDL is the Berkeley Software Distribution License written by the University of California, Berkeley. The BSD license consists of an original 4-sentence license, a modified 3-sentence license, and a simplified 2-sentence license. BSD refers both to the license itself and generally to this class of less restrictive and permissive licenses. The BSD, MIT, and Apache licenses are loose licenses that allow modified derivatives of software under those licenses to be distributed as closed sources.

5. MIT License

The MIT License, namely the open source license of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the simplest and so far the most popular of the many licenses mentioned in this article.

6. Apache License

Apache License is issued by the Apache Software Foundation. The Apache license for version 1.1 is similar to the BSD license and the MIT license. The Apache 2.0 license which is released in 2004 included two patent clauses. Therefore, it was considered to offer the best patent protection among the lenient licenses. 

Can we customize a license without using the above license? 

The answer is yes, but it is not necessary. For there are hundreds or even thousands of off-the-shelf licenses to choose from, and in view of compatibility reasons, it's best to use off-the-shelf licenses. In addition, using common licenses will make your project easier for others to understand. Therefore, the most important decision is to choose between a grant license and a lenient license. In many cases, the selection of license is limited by the choice of its predecessor. Without selecting a license, laws such as copyright law come into force and source code does not automatically enter the public domain. This means that the corresponding source code that contributes to a project cannot be modified or distributed by others.

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The Concepts of Open Source

Suggested Reading Time: 6min

Copyright belongs to Xiamen University Malaysia Open Source Community Promotion Group (for Community Service course)

*WeChat Public Account: XMUM_OSC *Original Hyperlink: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/n8FM7ulAgpfiP2mMBc9qcA

We chose to promote Open Source Community as our Community Service topic because the members of our group are all majoring in Software Engineering and Computer Science Technology. It is deeply understood that Open Source is not a term far from our daily school-life but also a kind of treasure that is deserve to be explored.

Open Source, namely, open the source code of a program to the public. Programmers not included in the development group are able to investigate, optimize and even expand the functions of the original program. Nowadays, more and more IT companies are devoted to support the career of Open Source. On the one hand, software developers can build their software using existing open source projects to reduce duplication of efforts. On the other hand, companies can gain the public’s help, including optimization and expansion, by sharing their source code which is under developing.

It is reported by CCTV that software, whether for mobile phones or computers, relies on up to 150 open source components on average. The earliest open source project was developed in the US, where today more than 100 foundations built for this area are registered. Recently in China, several large IT companies have also launched some high-quality open source projects. For example, HUAWEI’s HarmonyOS, Tencent’s TBase and Ali’s Mars.

Among Chinese Internet companies, the development of open source software is become a new trend. The latest data shows that the number of Chinese developers on Github, the largest code-hosting platform, is growing rapidly and second only to the users in the US. The Institute of Software of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has also started the major infrastructure construction of the open source software supply chain, which is aimed to provide high-quality and low-risk open source software to key devices and systems, especially for those built for manufacturing.

 The Concepts of Open Source

When it comes to Open Source, people can easily think about security, collaboration, low cost, positive development and freedom. These words are full of positive energy. That’s why someone describe open source as a kind of spirit. The opposite of open source, closed source, is usually associated with limitation, closure, lack of ambition, and vendor lock-in.

What supports the development of open source is neither feelings nor religious belief in freedom, but the market behind open source. The increasing demand of open source projects comes from the demand of IT instruction. IT instruction strongly relies on IT companies. However, what these companies are able to do now can be substituted by open source components. Software, like music, is inherently a digital commodity with zero distribution costs, leading to the demand gathering platforms like GitHub. Programmers can share their code on these platforms to meet the needs. In return, GitHub also brings a lot of attention to programmers who write useful programs, which, while they may not get a direct financial return, can help their careers.

Maxime Beauchemin, who created AirFlow and SuperSet while working at Airbnb, identifies three advantages of using open source BI in this article: ease of scaling, leverage the power of the community, and avoid vendor lock-in. One of the key reasons open source “takes over” the modern data stack, he noted, is that it is easier to find and test open source software, and the main costs of software distribution come from getting users to know you (search costs) and educating them to use it (transaction costs).

Simply put, open source is a superior approach at building and distributing software because it provides important guaranties around how software can be discovered, tried, operated, collaborated on and packaged. For those reasons, it is not surprising that it has taken over most of the modern data stack: infrastructure, databases, orchestration, data processing, AI/ML and beyond.

 The Reduction of Search Cost

Alex Danco recommends Nadia Eghbal's “Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance” of Open Source Software in his newsletter. The book demonstrates the changes in the way open source works.

If you look at most open source projects today, the distribution of doers and bystanders is clearly skewed. Typically, 95% of the work on a project is done by a single core person, or even a single developer. The long tail “contributors” are actually more like users or consumers, sometimes pulling requests, sometimes marking issues, but they are more like fans watching football games than major participants.

Given the appearance of the platforms like Github, it is easier to create, distribute, and discover software, open source is no longer a collaborative community but a Show for creators. Since there is no barrier to entry for anyone to join a project, popular projects are overrun by petty users, and the creators have to face the difficulties of all participants and sometimes vicious verbal attacks. This seems to echo Fred Brooks's point in The Mythical Man-Month: “Adding marginal engineers to a mission creates more costs than benefits.”

 The Reduction of Transaction Cost

We shape our tools, and our tools, in turn, shape us. Open source platforms like GitHub accelerate the discovery of software and mean that anyone can see your Show without any background. More modular and plug-and-play open source software is being developed these days because a tool with a smaller focus on not only has a larger audience but also requires a lower cost of trust.

By removing restrictions, open source protocols reduce the transaction cost of software, not just the high price of software licenses, but also the cost of trust. Traditional software has a long sales cycle because it takes a lot of time to educate customers and build trust, and customers spend a lot of time verifying that the software matches their needs in order to reduce unnecessary losses. Hence, many ToB companies like to hold conferences to increase customer awareness.

“It is easy to show that the total contribution of a program to society is reduced by assigning an owner to it. Each potential user of the program, faced with the need to pay to use it, may choose to pay, or may forego use of the program. When a user chooses to pay, this is a zero-sum transfer of wealth between two parties. But each time someone chooses to forego use of the program, this harms that person without benefiting anyone. The sum of negative numbers and zeros must be negative. But this does not reduce the amount of work it takes to develop the program. As a result, the efficiency of the whole process, in delivered user satisfaction per hour of work, is reduced.”

Famous Richard Stallman once wrote in “Why Software Should Be Free”.

This paragraph perfectly illustrates the unit economics of open source.