Does your company develop software that gives you an edge over
your competitors? Is the source code for your software a closely
guarded secret that adds to your bottom line? Would you be
reluctant to publish your source code on the internet? If the
answer to any of these questions is yes, then you should know how
open source software can negatively impact your business.
Open source software can be defined as any software where the
source code is licensed along with the actual functioning program.
The source code for a program is the collection of human readable
statements that are written and edited by a software developer.
Because the source code for open source software is publicly
available, a software developer can easily customize the open
source software to meet his or her needs. Furthermore, unlike with
traditional closed source software, a software developer can easily
incorporate one or more open source software components into a
larger proprietary codebase.
