This is my first blog post for my open source software development class, and I’m really excited to update this blog weekly for the spring2025 semester with all the progress I am going to make! I’ve definitely heard the term ‘open source’ many times in the past, and my impression is that it is a type of software where the source code is available for all to view and use as they would like.

Of the top of my head, there seems to be many advantages to this sort of model. Users get to access the software for free and have full transparency available to them. Additionally, for developers, they are able to utilise the power of the community to propel development forward, which I think is especially powerful when the organisation is not a huge, billion-dollar company like Apple or Meta, and does not have access to their vast resources. On question I have is how is open source software managed, how do they make sure bad or even malicious contributions do not get made when anyone can access the source code, especially on huge projects like firefox?

I decided to register for this class because I wanted a project-based class that allowed me to explore my interests (currently iOS development and also data analysis with python) in a real world context. I really enjoyed all the learning I have done over the past couple years, but I really wanted to apply myself and make contributions to exciting projects.

I have used many open source softwares in my programming journey and even in my everyday life. The obvious one that come to mind are Python, which is the language that I am most fluent in and have used in most of my classes (ML, DS&A, etc). I actually didn’t even know that this massive project was an open source one, so I was really suprised when Professor Klukowaska brought it up during our first lecture.

Additionally, Wikipedia was one of the first open source projects I ever used, before I even knew what open source was. It blew my mind that I could access such a massive amount of carefully catelogued information for free and with such ease. Information that may be banned in certain countries, hidden behind paywalls on other sites, and obscure enough to not be found anywhere else were all available on Wikipedia.

In terms of smaller scale and more niche projects, there are many interesting softwares that I use. For example, I own a macbook, which is a wonderful machine but unfortunately not the best OS for playing computer games. I recently came across the Wine project, which is an open-source compatability layer for mac users to access software that usually could only be accessed on windows machines. This project is quite old, and has been used to create more refined, modern compatibility softwares such as Crossover (not open source), and the Whiskey wrapper project, which is something that I would actually like to contribute to this semester.

Overall, I am excited to learn more and begin my open source journey!