SYSLAB.COM´s article of the month - Toward an Open Source Society
One of the oldest arguments against anarchism is that it is impractical, that without central authority to keep the peons in line any large project will dissolve into chaos and disorder.
Yet the open source software movement provides modern day proof that anarchism works, even when not conducted by anarchists.
Source code is the human readable text of a computer program, written by programmers and compiled into binary format for execution by the computer. Without the source code, it is nearly impossible to modify a computer program, or even understand how it works. Proprietary software vendors like Microsoft keep their source code confidential, distributing binary-only software to rob users of the ability to modify it for their own purposes.
Open Source software projects, by contrast, make their source code available to everyone. Anyone with an Internet connection can access the code and submit changes to the project maintainers. Non-code contributions can include bug reports, testing, documentation, and tech support. Development is thus conducted by a community for mutual benefit, instead of a corporation for maximum profit. This advantage is not just hypothetical. Successful open source projects in all areas of computing are slowly burying their closed competition.
Read more about open source and it´s successful projects in SYSLAB.COM´s monthly article
