Hi! Welcome to the Open Source Community! I’m sure your mind is buzzing with many questions, so let’s start with the most basic one! So, what is Open Source Software? Well
Open-source software is computer software with its source code made available with a license in which the copyright holder provides the rights to study, change, and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose. Today Open source software is a ubiquitous force in the technology industry. Most organizations creating software today either use open source software or are direct contributors to open source communities.
As a beginner in this vast world of Open Source its very easy to get lost and not understand much in the beginning, but as you go deeper into this field, admiration about its methods and way of functioning is sure to come. Imagine Open Source software to be a recipe that you have used to gain success and are now sharing that recipe of success to the world for free.
You can think of the source code of a program as the list of instructions that you’ve typed in your text editor to make the computer do something. By releasing the source code, you make the “recipe” for the development of a given piece of software publicly available. Having the source code out there, allows everyone with some technical knowledge to copy the software, to build it, to modify it, to distribute it by their own, to use it, to sell it (yes, that’s possible), to understand how it works, to teach people how to use it…It allows everyone to do anything they want with your software! With your work.
Imagine making the world your canvas, that is what open source enables you to do. It allows the world to become your stage and hence it opens up endless possibilities to opportunity and accomplishment!