open source beginners

Why it is called OPEN SOURCE? 🤔

CHRISTINE PETERSON coined the term “open source” in 1998 as part of a concerted effort to make source code sharing more appealing to commercial software developers and the broader business community.
He said in an article that "The problem with the main earlier label, "free software" was not its political connotations, but that—to newcomers—its seeming focus on price is distracting. A term was needed that focuses on the key issue of source code and that does not immediately confuse those new to the concept. The first term that came along at the right time and fulfilled these requirements was rapidly adopted: open source."

Open Source means something which is accessible by the general public and can be modified and shared.

What is Open Source Software?

Every Software has its source code and in open-source software, this source code can be accessed and modified by anyone.
Some of the most famous open Source Software are:-
- VLC Media player
- Firefox
- Python
- Blender
- PHP

Are Open Source Software and Free Source Software the Same?

Before I tell you About what are the differences between them, Let me Guess You are thinking that Free Software means free of cost, And This is not true.

According to WikiPedia

Free software or libre software, infrequently known as freedom-respecting software, is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, not price

Open Source Software is something that you can modify as per your needs, and share with others without any licensing violation burden. When we say Open Source, the source code of the software is available publicly with Open Source licenses like GNU (GPL) which allows you to edit the source code and distribute it.

Ways to contribute to open source

There are a lot of ways you can participate in open source. As a beginner, you could identify and fix bugs in a project. For example, the Angular project accepts issues pointing out bugs and even pull requests that fix them. In these projects, you can propose, help design, and work on new features. Angular for instance accepts proposals for large features and pull requests for smaller features. Larger features will require greater community involvement, and some communities require you to earn a reputation for fixing bugs before moving to feature development.

Your contributions do not have to be exclusive to code. You can help a project by making comments on existing code and APIs to add context and write documentation for the project.