When I hear the term open source, I usually envision a large team of people working on a specific project to then release publicly without much desire for profit. I envision these teams being comprised of members from around the world who may or may not have known each other before the creation of the project. I believe that some advantages of open source are that it allows for more people to give input and help solve issues, thus avoiding many of the needless errors that occur when a small team creates a project.

Closed source, to me, seems like a better idea if a team is looking to profit off of a project given that I think ownership over a project is unclear in an open source project. I decided to register for a class about open source software development because I want to gain exposure to real world projects and hopefully contribute to them in some meaningful way. I also want to learn more about how to manage them and how they work so that I can create my own in the future.

After some research, I realized that I actually use many open source projects in my day to day life. One example is Python, which is a coding language I use for many of my projects that integrates well with many other technologies. Another is Git which allows for version control and integrates with Github, the platform I am using right now. The third open source project I use is Chromium which provided the backing for my main browser, Google Chrome, allowing me to seek out any knowledge I may be after. The last open source project that I’m familiar with is CoralNet, a project meant to help with coral conservation by allowing for people around the world to contribute to data analysis and tools used in conservation.

Overall, open source projects are an exciting world to jump into with many possibilities for collaboration and innovation. I am excited to learn more about it.