MaGIC Academy: Open Source Technologies

Background Information

Open source software are published and made available to the public, enabling anyone to re-use, modify and redistribute source code without paying royalties or fees. Open-source code evolves through community cooperation. These communities are composed of individual programmers from separate continents, differing levels of skills, as well as from large companies. In the past, individuals who were involved in open-source projects have ended up establishing companies offering products or services incorporating open-source programs.

Open source software benefits programmers and non-programmers alike. In fact, because much of the Internet itself is built on many open source technologies like the Linux operating system and the Apache Web Server Application. Anyone using the Internet benefits from open source software. Every time an individal views webpages, check email, chat with friends, stream music online, or play multiplayer video games, their computers, mobile phones, or gaming consoles connect to a global network of computers that routes and transmits their data to the "local" devices they have in front of them.

Popular open-source software include: Linux, Apache HTTP Server, GNU Compiler Collection, Firefox, Thunderbird, MySQL, Python.

Useful References (and recommended readings)