I chose Open Source Tech Training (OSTT) as a name because I hope in some small way, this can help your average user get over any fears or uncertainty about open source and free tools. That said, what I share, is my own experience and workflows, not all of which are 100% open source. For example, the introduction to GSuite or Google Docs is a way that I tend to use email and office personally, and professionally these days. GSuite is free to use to a point (create your Google account get 15 GB of space in their cloud) but would not be considered open source as the underlying code is not public.
So what is open source? Search in Google and a few definitions come up:
- Open source - "denoting software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified." - Google search result for "Define open source"
- Open-source software "is a type of computer software in which source code is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the rights to study, change, and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose." - Wikipedia
A couple of items needed are the software is free to use, but the code must also be freely available, and allow for other people to make changes. Lots of tools and services, like Linux which we covered, FreeBSD, or Signal Messenger, adhere to the standard of open source. Those with the knowledge and willingness, can go find the code (much of which is shared via GitHub), and can tweak, modify and help improve the code that is there.
It's a community. Open source is built by both skilled developers and unskilled people looking to learn, spending time to improve code and projects. Many people will explain how they became involved and often it has to do with pure interest. Open source can also allow for a wider net of developers to work on something. While a corporation would have more control on direction for a project, it takes a lot of resources to create modern applications, including both the initial development and testing and debugging. Open source helps as anyone who finds a bug can report it and become involved in the process of fixing it, so for many smaller projects its a good way to get started to help iron out bugs and field test a software at least at its most basic level.
Coming back to this blog and effort, I am no developer, and haven't been involved in the community aspects, though I have great respect for the people who have that knowledge. What Open Source Tech Training seeks to do is explains how to use open source and free software to handle common tasks. In that sense, I talk almost purely about the usage of these tools, and am not too concerned about the nuances of only using open source. Its really about finding what works for your workflow, and what we're focusing on is some tips and tricks to explore how these tools can be used.
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