Open Source Problems
I am quite fond of open-source software. In a world where ivory tower ideas are tainted by the greed of men, open source is a champion of purity and creativity. The telecommunication and media industries may have been poisoned by a struggle for wealth, but open source will vanquish corruption from technology. Nevertheless, open-source software comes with a problem of its own. Even though the source code is freely available for editing and revising, most projects lack good documentation. How can software be open when it lies beyond a veil of proprietary knowledge? The whole point of open source software is that anyone can pick it up and make changes to it. Few programmers, however, have six months of time to invest in learning how a poorly documented project works. Many open-source projects provide user-level documentation, but offer little when it comes to helping new developers.
I like open-source software. For the most-part, though, I find enough customizability ability in non-open-source software that it is easier and often more convenient to use.
ReplyDeleteThat's a really interesting perspective about Open Source not always being as "open" in terms of transparency and ease of use. I know I have turned away from some open source solutions that I'm sure were great, but had terrible documentation, making the learning curve really high. Proper documentation can definitely help a project reach a wider range of developers and achieve success where others may fail.
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