WEBVTT - How Open Source Works

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<v Speaker 1>Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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<v Speaker 1>It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

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<v Speaker 1>tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hi, and

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<v Speaker 1>welcome to the podcast. My name is Chris Pelett. I'm

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<v Speaker 1>an editor here at how Stuff Works, and I've got

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<v Speaker 1>writer Jonathan Strickland with me today. Hey there, we're calling

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<v Speaker 1>this one the wide Open Podcast. Awesome. You gotta love

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<v Speaker 1>open especially when you're talking about open source software, which

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<v Speaker 1>is what we were going to discuss, um based. Basically,

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<v Speaker 1>what happened was, after the release of Gutsy Gibbon, which

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<v Speaker 1>is a new version of the open source Ubuntu operating system.

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<v Speaker 1>I decided to download it, burn it on a CD

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<v Speaker 1>and put it in my, uh my father's old PC

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<v Speaker 1>that he gave me when he got a new one,

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<v Speaker 1>and um, you know, actually I brought it up with him.

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<v Speaker 1>I said, I'm gonna, you know, try this out on

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<v Speaker 1>your old machine. You know, it's not gonna be using

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<v Speaker 1>Windows and you know, that's just another thing that people

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<v Speaker 1>aren't going to use. And he was saying, what's the

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<v Speaker 1>big deal? Why should I care about open source? And

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<v Speaker 1>I really didn't have I clean cut good podcast, Double

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<v Speaker 1>answer for im at the time. Well, I'm glad you

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<v Speaker 1>came into the room today because I've got one for you. Actually, Uh,

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<v Speaker 1>well we'll talk it. First of all, what open source

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<v Speaker 1>really means, um. Open source is a way of developing

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<v Speaker 1>software in which the the original developer, whoever first programs

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<v Speaker 1>the the application, uh, makes all of the source code

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<v Speaker 1>available to anyone and everyone who wants to look at

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<v Speaker 1>it and not just look at it, but copy it,

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<v Speaker 1>modify it, build on it, alter it in any way

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<v Speaker 1>they like, as long as they're also following the rules

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<v Speaker 1>set by the Open Source Initiative, which is a group

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<v Speaker 1>that kind of oversees the standards that are used for

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<v Speaker 1>open source software. And the idea here is that through

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<v Speaker 1>a community of developers, a program can evolve much faster

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<v Speaker 1>in a much more fluid environment, uh than it would

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<v Speaker 1>in a clothe environment. And by closed environment, we're talking

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<v Speaker 1>about companies that have proprietary software where only their developers

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<v Speaker 1>work on the program. We're looking at you Microsoft and Apple. Yes,

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<v Speaker 1>particularly yes, particularly those two, especially Apple, because you know,

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<v Speaker 1>since they build their own machines, they they're operating system

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<v Speaker 1>takes advantage of those specific uh pieces of the computer

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<v Speaker 1>like the processor, and the video card and the the

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<v Speaker 1>audio card that specifically operates, which is one of those

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<v Speaker 1>things that makes Apple computer. Why you know, people say

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<v Speaker 1>that Apple computers just works because they always have, you know,

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<v Speaker 1>a certain subset of of materials that're going to make

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<v Speaker 1>the machines up right. It's not like a PC that

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<v Speaker 1>could come from one or one manufacturer versus one thousand

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<v Speaker 1>other manufacturers. Um, it's software that is specifically designed to

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<v Speaker 1>work on a specific machine and so hey, what do

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<v Speaker 1>you know? It works. But the problem is they don't

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<v Speaker 1>share that with everybody, so no one else can really

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<v Speaker 1>tweak anything or build anything specifically off of that software

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<v Speaker 1>you have. It's it's much more difficult to develop software

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<v Speaker 1>for a platform like that, and then you have, you know,

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<v Speaker 1>bugs that come up and you have to wait for

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<v Speaker 1>them the manufacturer to do that, rather than you know,

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<v Speaker 1>the open source group can go ahead and get to

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<v Speaker 1>work on it, and somebody can, you know, over their

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<v Speaker 1>lunch break from their day job, can maybe work out

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<v Speaker 1>a bug that has been bugging the users of that software.

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<v Speaker 1>That's actually kind of an extension of the old hacker culture,

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<v Speaker 1>where hackers would look at a program and say, you know,

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<v Speaker 1>this thing is just not doing what I think it

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<v Speaker 1>should do, not necessarily what it was designed to do,

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<v Speaker 1>but whatever the hacker thought this program was supposed to do.

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<v Speaker 1>And then the hacker would go hack out some code.

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<v Speaker 1>That's where the name came from, and uh, you know,

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<v Speaker 1>by hooker by crook, that program was going to do

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<v Speaker 1>what the hacker wanted it to do. And the same

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<v Speaker 1>sort of thing with open source software. If you were

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<v Speaker 1>to download a certain application that was open source and

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<v Speaker 1>you were to use it, and you're saying, you know,

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<v Speaker 1>this could really use such and such. There's this one

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<v Speaker 1>feature that I really wish this had. Well, if you

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<v Speaker 1>had the skills and the knowledge, you could program that

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<v Speaker 1>feature and insert it into the application and make it

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<v Speaker 1>available to everyone, and now, voila, we've got a new

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<v Speaker 1>version of this software that something has a new feature,

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<v Speaker 1>and we didn't have to wait three years for the

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<v Speaker 1>next cycle of releases to come around. That's true. Yeah.

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<v Speaker 1>An example that you may already be using UM is

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<v Speaker 1>when when Netscape was bought by a o L, they

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<v Speaker 1>released their source code for the Netscape browser as open source,

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<v Speaker 1>and it is resulted in the Thunderbird email client, the

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<v Speaker 1>Firefox browser, and somebody released the Flock browser, which incorporates uh,

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<v Speaker 1>the ability to network your social network stuff into the browser.

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<v Speaker 1>So you actually have a sidebar where you can check

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<v Speaker 1>the Flicker the latest feed from Flicker or Twitter or

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<v Speaker 1>Facebook or whatever, you know, several different accounts, and they

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<v Speaker 1>actually just added some new ones. So they saw a

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<v Speaker 1>need for that and just went ahead and upgraded the

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<v Speaker 1>browser the way they thought it should be done. If

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<v Speaker 1>you'd like to learn more about open source, we have

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<v Speaker 1>an article called what does open source mean? We also,

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<v Speaker 1>if you are interested in the hacker culture, Johnathan wrote

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<v Speaker 1>an article about how hackers work, and both of those

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<v Speaker 1>are available on how stuff works dot com. Thanks for listening.

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<v Speaker 1>For moral on this and thousands of other topics. Is

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<v Speaker 1>how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think.

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<v Speaker 1>Send an email to podcasts at how stuff works dot com.

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<v Speaker 1>Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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