The Pros and Cons of Open Source Software Development

Open source software is the category of software whose source code is openly available to everyone. It may or may not be free too. Unlike proprietary software that belongs to an organization or individual(s), open source development services offer transparency in the sense that the software can be accessed, shared, and modified by anyone. The developers add a Creative Commons (CC) license for these kinds of projects to make people aware of it.

This idea was a breakthrough for the software industry and a lot of products that we popularly use nowadays are open source. You might not even realize it as an end-user. The common examples are Linux, Firefox browser, WordPress content management system (CMS), and so on. People with many years of experience also provide their inputs and beginners come up with fresh ideas. This kind of team work leads to well-crafted solutions and a great experience for developers. Modern-day tools have made it quite simple and even tech giants like Amazon and Google use this while working on various projects.

In this article, we will discuss some of the major reasons why open source software development has gained so much popularity in recent times as well as factors that make other people skeptical about going this path.

Pros of Open Source Software Development

So, is open source development the way to go? What benefit is in it for the developers or businesses looking to work with it? Let us find out the reasons for the open source community is so large and the power that comes with open source software development.

• Work experience: By working on an open source project, you open up your world to endless possibilities. GitHub is a great platform to work on open source projects. You get recognition for just being an active member and you have access to a vast variety of resources beneficial in your career, regardless of the years of experience you have. Apart from this, you get to work with developers around the world which helps you in learning new things, networking with others, and being an efficient team member. This means that developers will have better chances of getting freelancing or job offers by big companies. If the developer is already working, he/she may help secure contracts with new partners or clients such as SaaS Development Services.
• Cost: If you are a startup, then this is a great advantage for you. When starting out, the software is mostly free or is relatively cheaper to start with when compared to proprietary solutions. The additional costs are generally due to a third party’s investment in the project. So, you first use the tools, then as your business grows, you can start investing more money. This pattern is common for customer relationship management or CRM website development.
• Discontinuation: Just like any other category of software, the developers may stop working on an open-source project. If this is the case, there would usually be no updates to the existing version, that is, it will be deprecated. This will mean vulnerabilities including those related to security and you will need to switch to another product which can be a tedious process. But when offering open source development services, anyone can contribute and the product will continue to evolve.
• Flexibility: While developing open source software, you do not have restrictions on how to go about working on the project. The complete control is with the developers to make it customizable. Also, there is no rigid agreement that lists the terms and conditions on the purposes that the end-user may download it for. Open source platforms provide numerous resources to developers so that they can quickly build their solutions on top of it and make their lives simpler. SaaS Development Services is a good example of this.
• Security and reliability: There is never a dearth of projects in the open source community but you can easily find people skilled with a particular technology. They work on improving the software constantly. Bugs and other vulnerabilities can be quickly dealt with once a member raises an issue. For instance, if you are a CMS Development company, you know that the users’ data cannot be misused either since everything is based on transparency. For proprietary software, there will be a smaller team of developers which means that the time taken by them to resolve an issue would be longer. Also, sometimes the team might not know about the vulnerabilities until some end-user complains of an issue.

Cons of Open Source Development

Given the pros, why is not every project open source then? Some of the arguments against the idea are listed here.

• Coordination: As the coordination is remote and among thousands of developers belonging to different regions around the world, confusion from misunderstandings can easily arise. For example, you are a developer working on a feature that will help a CMS Development company. Now, another developer is unaware of the fact and starts working on it too. It is true that when you try to merge your code with the source code, the conflict will arise and prevent that from happening but the extra time and effort of one of the developers gets wasted since only the preferred code will be added to the original project. Also, if the developer is a beginner, his/her code may require refactoring. This can be a waste of time or sometimes these contributions may not get merged with the original code.
• Support: Developers working on an open source project may not always have good user documentation for non-technical people. Also, if you need help with something like CRM website development, it’s not anyone’s responsibility to help you as a user. This means that you might have to wait for hours or even days till someone is generous enough to answer all your queries. For bigger problems that need immediate fixes, you would have to ask your employees to solve it and if they can’t, you might have to hire someone on a contractual basis.

Conclusion

So, whether you should go for open source development or not depends on your needs. Different people will have different views in terms of for or against the topic of open source development. But what matters is that your choice will be ultimately based on the kind of project that you have in mind.