The term open source refers to something people can modify and share because its design is publicly accessible. It originated in the context of software development to designate a specific approach to creating computer programs. Today, open source designates a broader set of values. Information Week brought this interesting topic to our attention in their article, “What IT Leaders Need to Know About Open Source Software.”
By design, open source software licenses promote collaboration and sharing because they permit other people to make modifications to source code and incorporate those changes into their own projects. They encourage computer programmers to access, view and modify open source software whenever they like, as long as they let others do the same when they share their work.
More than 95% of information technology (IT) organizations worldwide use open source software (whether they realize it or not) within mission-critical IT workloads. Furthermore, interest in open source continues to grow. It has never been more important for IT leaders to put in the work to gain a better understanding of open source.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in thesaurus, ontology, and taxonomy creation and metadata application.
