Why We Love Open Source

As a history buff, and kind of a TV nut, I've been intrigued that we've been getting a bunch of great new movies that are really great history pieces. I just loved the John Adams miniseries that HBO did. And I just watched Recount - which was a great re-telling of the Bush V. Gore Florida mess... I promise that's where the politics stop... One of the main themes of both of these pieces is that we should remember our history, lest we be destined to repeat it.

So, it's amazing to me how forgotten the original ideas of Open Source have become. In a classic came of telephone, over the years, people have really come to equate Open Source with "free" - as in "no money".

Long forgotten is that Open Source, or even the “Free Software movement” that preceded it was never about cost. In fact, the Free Software Movement is famous for saying "Free software" is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of 'free speech', not 'free beer'."

Even today’s Open GNU license says right in its preamble that free software is freedom not price.

Open source has always been about giving people flexibility and control. From its founding it was about giving developers the freedom to configure software however, whenever and wherever they like. Certainly in the beginning this was because there often wasn’t a commercial alternative available. But over time – this has become something that has resembled more of a movement in the sense of being able to modify, configure and customize software freely. And then share that with a larger community and have it be improved upon.

The challenge is that all too frequently, the choice of Open Source CMS software is an attempt to solve the wrong problem. The price. The choice of open source is often NOT made with an eye toward the comparison of a solution that I install, support and upgrade, vs. a system that I don't have to support, install and upgrade. It's still all too often made over which one seems "cheaper". And then, actually, the choice of Open Source CMS Software often compounds the problem it’s intended to solve which is providing a more inexpensive way of managing the web site.

With Open Source it’s freedom TO, not freedom FROM price…

And when we look at Open Source CMS systems we find that this is still the main benefit. A large, open community employs the “wisdom of crowds” theory to software development. In short, with a large productive community, you theoretically have more options, more customization capabilities and wider support options.

Now, in an Open Source CMS like Drupal or Joomla – the treasure trove of benefits are not typically in the code itself. There certainly is a community that does support the core product development. But MOST of the development is happening on the front end… With Drupal and Joomla it’s new themes, modules, front end templates that are exciting the community… Because let’s face it that’s where most of the work gets done in the real world… Especially with agencies that need to get a client up and running… Having a LARGE choice of themes and modules is what’s made Drupal one of the leading Open Source CMS’s out there…. It’s certainly NOT its ease of implementation or customization, which is legendarily cumbersome. And, it’s not in its security, or its scalability which again has been well documented.

And that's one of the reasons CrownPeak launched this community. We believe in the philosophoy of the community driven solution. We want to share frameworks, templates, best practices with our customers - and celebrate the open philosophy of software elements that can be developed and shared freely.

If you haven't reviewed our code library for best practices or templates, that's a great place to start - and as we grow the community we hope the trade and our own submissions of templates, themes, frameworks and best practices to the community will be valuable to you.

Comments

[UGG]

She lived a very friendly, stupid nephew who did most of the work on the farm, is a reluctant alonesave all. Harriet and I do not have the above conditions of the week, when we first met Miss Aiken made, orrather she brought us together.

[Barefoot Running Shoes]

And life is not always a satisfactory response to our impatiencewith moral conclusions. Life is uncertain: in the end is very open inside.

[ugg.com]

i went to the same school as patrick. i remeber those girls from my school who wrote in. they were white trash...i always felt so bad for them.

[LouisVuitton]

Achievement presents the only genuine delight in life