Open source operating systems

What are open source operating systems:

“Open source software is software whose source code is available for modification or enhancement by anyone.”

Source code is a code that written by a programmer and is not provided to the users it is for the programmers so that they can alter its code and test it in different ways

INTRODUCTION:

Sharing information with each other started in 1969 with the introduction of internet. The term "open source" was first proposed by a group of people in the free software movement .They suggested "open source" at a meeting held at Palo Alto, California, in reaction to Netscape's announcement in January 1998 of a source code release for Navigator. The term gained further visibility through an event organized in April 1998 by technology publisher Tim O'Reilly. Originally titled the "Freeware Summit" and later known as the "Open Source Summit".

Why were they introduced:

In the beginning, software was free, something you needed to make the hardware run. Then Microsoft and others demonstrated that people would pay for source code, and for a long while software wasn’t free. But source code was often clunky, and what worked on one kind of computer had to be re-created on others. Soon people realized there was a better way, and software became free again, sort of. Open-source software is essentially software that’s open to the public for changing, and over time that tinkering makes the code stronger.

How it works:

From a business user perspective, open source software works in much the same way as proprietary software systems provided by commercial software firms – the only difference being that generally you don’t pay for it. However there are a few important differences – the idea behind open source software is that users are effectively co-developers, suggesting ways to improve it and helping to hunt out bugs and problems. This means that if you wish, you can modify it to your own needs, port it to new operating systems and share it with others.

Reasons of popularity of Open Source Operating Systems:

·         People prefer open source software because they have more control over that kind of software.

·          They can examine the code to make sure it's not doing anything they don't want it to do, and they can change parts of it they don't like.

·         Users who aren't programmers also benefit from open source software, because they can use this software for any purpose they wish—not merely the way someone else thinks they should.

·         Others like open source software because it helps them become better programmers. Because open source code is publicly accessible, students can learn to make better software by studying what others have written.

·         Some people prefer open source software because they consider it more secure and stable than proprietary software

Advantages of open source operating system:

·         .It’s generally free 

·          It’s continually evolving in real time as developers add to it and modify it, which means it can be better quality and more secure and less prone to bugs than proprietary systems, because it has so many users poring over it and weeding out problems.

·          Using open source software also means you are not locked in to using a particular vendor’s system that only work with their other system

·         You can modify and adapt open source software for your own business requirements, something that is not possible with proprietary systems.

Disadvantages of open source operating systems:

·         Because there is no requirement to create a commercial product that will sell and generate money, open source software can tend to evolve more in line with developers’ wishes than the needs of the end user

·          For the same reason, they can be less “user-friendly” and not a

 improvements to the program, others use this privilege to exploit the product’s vulnerabilities and create bugs that can infect hardware, steal identities or just annoy other users.

Examples of open source operating systems:

Linux Mint    Ubuntu                      Zorin OS       Robolinux    StartOS         Pinguy OS   

 Antergos      Manjaro         PCLinuxOS  Edubuntu     Mageia           OpenMandriva

Kubuntu       Netrunner     Kwheezy      Point Linux