In the 1990s, free software was considered exotic in the corporate environment, and the only notable competitor of proprietary giants led by Microsoft for a long time was the company Red Hat, but since the second half of the 2000s, the situation began to change rapidly. Open source software has become mainstream for many large companies, and dozens of reliable open source software vendors have emerged that have reached the proper high level of expertise and experience in order to serve large and demanding corporate clients.
I support the vision of the AERGO in the development of the blockchain in the direction of open source and I am surprised to see some projects patent your code and, thereby, inhibit the development of the whole technology. Underlying technologies in AERGO are proposed to be made open source, as it is truly an open and decentralised system.
Why is the introduction of open source in the blockchain a positive wave? My opinion such:
Open source allows everyone to learn the principles of the application, which significantly increases the control over its quality.
The source code is much easier to detect vulnerabilities in software security. This will enable the AERGO blockchain to reach a previously unattainable level of security
Open and free software is developed according to common standards, unlike commercial SOFTWARE, which often tries to promote its own software in order to monopolize the market, creating huge inconveniences for users. Common standards for the blockchain means ease of implementation in any business and in any sphere of life, which is exactly what AERGO preaches
Thanks to the open source code, Open Source DAPP is developed with the help of so-called network development models, which are much more efficient and flexible than the development models used to create commercial products.
Next, I would like to talk about an abstract but important topic about the open source movement not only in technology, but also in completely creative areas. How much it changes society and how important it is to achieve this in the blockchain.
OPEN SOURCE is a characteristic of the product, the materials that are available under an open source license. At first, this concept was used only in the field of technology: creating open source software (or part of it), developers encouraged the initiative and could improve their product thanks to the inventions of users. However, the values of the open source movement were close not only to programmers who advocate for transparency and freedom of information, but also to representatives of the creative industries. Today, professionals from various fields create similar products: the code to the mobile application and, for example, a model of shoes that can be printed on a 3D printer can be in the public domain.
Open source in technology
Open source-the movement began on the initiative of professionals from the world of technology. Many large technology companies use now open source code: Twitter developers put the code in open access; Facebook publishes codes for online game developers, Apple-for application creators. Google recently released a design editor that allows you to create web pages. In addition, sharing code has become much easier thanks to the large service GitHub, created for hosting IT-projects and joint development of software codes.
Open-source code guarantees users that the software does not contain backdoors of special services. For example, the us national security Agency participated in the development of Windows 7, which caused a lot of questions from the IT community.
Open source in design and fashion
Open data in design allows designers to share their own experiences with other professionals (for example, by posting free fonts or templates on the Internet), as well as giving access to design products to their users. Thanks to the possibilities of digital production, more and more designers put in open access the documentation of their projects, which allows, for example, to create home furniture according to drawings posted on the Internet. In addition, the new method of production — 3D printing-is associated with the growth of popularity and placed in the public domain 3D — models. Clothing designers do not often resort to open source — in the end, we are talking about art, and there is a strong desire to retain the right to the idea. But there are exceptions, for example, the site www.openwear.org, which offers to share your own patterns and models for 3D printing.
Often open data is supported by designers, for whom sustainability and environmental friendliness of their product is important. The use of open data helps not to waste resources on the transportation of products, as well as not to produce unnecessary items.
Open source in architecture
In recent years, there have been many major projects related to the open data movement in the field of architecture: more and more professionals share their data and technologies and allow people to transform their own built buildings. In 2011, Domus editor and curator Joseph Grima asked the staff of Carlo Ratti Associati architectural Bureau to create an open source architecture Manifesto. Instead, they wrote an Open Source Architecture article on Wikipedia so that everyone could contribute to it. In the fall of 2012, this article was turned into a Manifesto of the open source movement in architecture: at the exhibition within the Istanbul Design Biennial, the robot wrote an article on the gallery wall, showing how it changed during edits made by Internet users.
In addition, a large Bureau UNStudio opened a Department that deals with research and open source-projects. The company has launched four online platforms divided by themes: new materials, innovative organizations, architectural sustainability and smart parameters. Now on the company's website, the Studio staff share the knowledge acquired in the course of research and work on the projects of the Bureau, so that architects around the world can use their achievements.
Open source in society
The struggle for open education, society and government is taking place on the Internet today. Various documents, which should be provided free of charge, are sold by intermediary companies in the USA and Russia. All this would have gone unnoticed if not for the Internet activists, namely Aaron Schwartz. One of the creators of the world-famous Reddit website has turned the "liberation" of non-commercial documents into a matter of his life. In the summer of 2011, he was accused of downloading more than four million documents from the JSTOR database — a non-profit archive of academic journals and research papers of the Massachusetts Institute of technology, free for students and paid for by everyone else. Aaron Swartz could not stand the pressure (the hacker could put in 30 years) and took his own life. Open access to data is not a toy, but an entity that breaks the established order of things. That is why the unprepared authorities can accidentally break the life of activists.