Open Source vs. Closed Source

[John]

Which paradigm, closed source or open source, do you prefer and why? Good, relevant, and unique responses will receive +rep


I prefer open source because in many cases it is free of cost, it is more stable and more secure.

[WingedPanther]

I see both having their advantages.

Open-Source allows people to exchange ideas freely, and a useful utility can grow much more rapidly as people get excited about it and contribute to it. On the other hand, open-source's viral licensing can also prevent it from contributing to closed-source projects, resulting in an otherwise helpful utility being completely useless for an application and forcing a closed-source developer to re-implement existing functionality. Open-source can also have some serious issues with enabling companies to make money or utilize closed-source solutions.

Closed-source is easier to work with from the perspective of securing valuable code and making money from it. It can also be easier to ensure certain standards for the code/product. That said, when a company goes out of business, it can be a disaster for their customers that have no way to maintain the code. Closed-source also lends itself to proprietary formats that can disappear. My wife is dealing with that issue with Word Perfect (she can't open documents in OpenOffice on her EEE PC, and is having to manually transfer all her writing to the new format).

This has actually been one of the major factors as I review various GUI toolkits for C++. Some toolkits cannot be used to create closed-source applications, which I may want to do in the future. By the same token, I'm not going to shell out a lot of money for a proprietary toolkit so I can create an application for personal use or to release as an Open-Source application.

[John]

This has actually been one of the major factors as I review various GUI toolkits for C++. Some toolkits cannot be used to create closed-source applications, which I may want to do in the future. By the same token, I'm not going to shell out a lot of money for a proprietary toolkit so I can create an application for personal use or to release as an Open-Source application.

That is true. Quite ironic actually, but there are so many open source licenses, many of them (like the LGPL) allow you to use them with proprietary software. If I can recall, by 2012 it is estimated that 80% of all software will use some form of open source software.

[WingedPanther]

LGPL can get tricky as well... many toolkits actually use a modified LGPL to allow static linking.

[Xav]

Open-source opens the floodgates for addons, extensions and whatnot. Just take a look at FireFox. Its popularity is largely due to the extensions, which couldn't have been done (obviously) if the program was closed-source.

[WingedPanther]

Not true. A well documented plugin API could accomplish the same thing. IE also has plugins, but most of the plugins for IE aren't free.

[Aereshaa]

I prefer to use open-source software, because it is generally of very high quality. Examples include Firefox, Linux, Perl, Python, Zsnes, Bittorrent...

[Brandon W]

I prefer to use open-source software. One of the reasons is they are always free, compared to closed-source which can be free but also can be very expensive.

The code is freely available. This is good so other coders can have a look at the code and suggest to the designers that they could improve there good here and there and add new features this way.

Most open-source software can be better than many other closed-source software.

Look at Paint.NET vs Photoshop. Yes Photoshop wins, but Paint.NET is a great competitor and has many of the same features.

Firefox/Chrome vs Internet Explorer. Do I really need to explain?

Look at PHP and MySQL now. Because they are open-source and have many great features, it has made them the top of their markets. So open-source can help you gain popularity too!

[Prototype]

It depends. It might help fix problems.

[John]

I prefer to use open-source software. One of the reasons is they are always free, compared to closed-source which can be free but also can be very expensive.

Not all open source software is free in terms of price. Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a perfect example.