What Is Open Source Software?

Ville Aikas is a Co-founder of Knative, and the first non founder working on Kubernetes. In this interview, Ville gives the best and simplest explanation of the Open Source concept we've ever heard. Enjoy!

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[arjunkashyap]

I watched Honeypot's doc on vue which incited my interest in contributing to open-source.. Amazing experience so far

[mysterOrel]

Thx Honeypot !! Always a smile on my face when I see your video notification !

[chef]

Open Source to me is what a post-scarcity world looks like. Where copying is encouraged and not seen as theft.

[capedcrusader]

A Correction, "Free" in Free and Open Source Software doesn't mean "Free of cost" but means "Free as in Freedom". That's why people tend to use the FLOSS term instead of FOSS in which "L" stands for Libre and Libre means Free as in Freedom.

[_Ani_]

Not everything is free in open-source, neither does everything has a modifying and re-distribution policy (can be seen in some Github readmes, based on the entity/organization's wishes). + Sometimes the previous version of a software might be available, but newer versions can be kept private. (or not open-sourced)

[dagoacarralero]

amaizing craft, for real, how well done it's this stuff, really good music also

[alpham]

Yep, right. But when you ask the GNU guys there's a huge difference between openSource software and free software. However, basically OSS is vendor dependend (you can only download it fromthe vendor; you need to ask them for like anything; needs to rebrand if you wanna use it individually or redistribute it).

[rahulbelwal]

Ost great outstanding good lectures lecturership lectured

[RichardFirOey]

Youtube: What is open source software ?
Me: I know that, don't make another explaination video
Youtube : but it's from Honeypot
Me: (click the video)

[rahulbelwal]

The great lecturs lectutesship lecture of

[OmarQunsul]

Isn't he describing (Free Software) not (Open Source) software?
There are some Open Source software products, that you are not free to use, without buying it. Or maybe evening modifying it.
If I am not mistaken, vBulletin is an example

[evillbunny]

Love the concept of open source, but I want to play devil's advocate and argue that, in practice, it mostly benefits large companies (hence why they embrace it so freely). Facebook, for example, is more than happy to let the community (and even their competitors) work on React with/for them, but they obviously keep any code that supports their profit centers (recommender algorithms, data processing techniques, etc.) proprietary. In doing so, Facebook et al. have essentially demonetized front-end work for any new company, individual developer, etc., to where such a small dev may have to pursue aggressive (and probably anti-open source) niches to remain profitable (see MDBootstrap). And while we love to romanticize the Vues and Sveltes of the world, they're the minority among Reacts, Angulars, Bootstraps, etc., which are pushed by large companies (and notably all "open source").
The same can be said for the backend and DevOps, as Microsoft builds an impressive batteries-included open source ecosystem of IDEs, database tools, programming languages, etc., which are part of a pipeline into the Azure ecosystem (one of their profit centers). As a developer, I immensely enjoy these tools but realize that, if I didn't work for a large non-tech company myself (one that I must point out, hugely benefits from open source but makes no attempts to contribute), I'd be pretty lost for any decent entry point into a small software business (besides asking for tips in the install logs for my npm packages, which I routinely see).
Even established new-ish players, like Mongo, seem to be far from secure imo. Their core technology is open source, and while I haven't dug into their balance sheet, I assume that their revenue comes from PaaS/DBaaS offerings, which, to no one's surprise, bigger competitors like Microsoft and AWS have the upper hand on.
At this point, I'm legitimately asking if anyone else is discussing the down sides to open source, or if maybe I'm getting all worked up over nothing.

[Sonsequence]

Some neat explanations in there but like most explanations it skips over the crucial misconception most non-software people have.

Computers run on code, so if you download a piece of software and know how to break inside it you'll find the all that programming language code?

No, most downloadable software was _originally_ programmer code but what they make available to download was blended down into a fine soup of *machine* code. This machine code is perfect for a CPU to read but it's just 1s and 0s. It's not considered readable by humans and contra to popular belief, even programming geniuses are such creatures. It takes a great deal of expert work to turn this back into programmer code.

For decades, this technical detail was the foundation of the financial success of consumer software. Otherwise, competitors could copy your millions of dollars of work, change a few things and resell it next week.

The audacity of open source is that it is saying yes to exactly that. For that reason, open source software is not only modifiable and expandable but it's also usually cost free for anyone to use because it would be futile to try to charge. Effectively, that's for the same reason you can't build a good business model out of making people pay a dollar to download a song as a normal mp3.

So most OSS is made by volunteers but that doesn't mean companies never make money from writing open source software, just that they do it indirectly by leveraging their position as the world expert on it. You might pay them for consultancy or - if it's server software - for them to handle the tricky business of keeping it running smoothly.

[josecurioso]

No one ever asks HOW is Open Source Software, smh...

[dhaouadikassem]

we are thirsty for new documentary about software devs

[scifregizmoguy]

Disliked, only because its kind of misleading. Also, no mention of Free/Libre Software. This could have been better explained.