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Open Source Software

Category: Computer Sciences Paper Type: Report Writing Reference: APA Words: 4200

                As an ethical school – David Berry and Charles Ess are study if an open-source method can teach ethics or not. The Research Guidelines of AoIR were defined by Ess just similar to open-source ethics. These ethics consist of professional rules and this is based on the school of computer ethics, focusing on the questions of rules and professionalism in the industry of computer, especially software development (Ellis, Hislop, & Burdge, 2017).

            There are several diverse aspects when it comes the using an open-source software. It is actually important to discuss the libertarian perspective. The question regarding if this software is more ethical compared to using a proprietary software or not is not relevant. In a society where innovation is crucial, there is a need to protect and unleash the advantages of an open-source model; make it useful and usable as a basic rule for innovation while keeping responsibility, pragmatic, and compliancy in check. Three important roles can describe the open-source ethics (Midrack, 2018):

• Redistributor and Commercial Consumer

• Provider of Open Source

• Contributor of Open Source

Commercial software and OSS can coexist while delivering the required goods. Both the critics and advocates of OSS seem to have an ethically obliged to respect the other while avoiding meanspirited and inaccurate accusations. Every software developer has an ethical obligation for openness and quality (Software engineering code of ethics, 1999). It can be said that OSS is a competent advancement of traditional ideas concerned with sharing intellectual academic property, however, OSS actually exists when commercial expertise is ruling. Therefore, the challenges of OSS are concerned with the status quo which constructively checks the excess of general systems of an enterprise. When various for-profit companies have let the public down, OSS has the capability of being positive in the computing world. Hackers getting involved in the development of OSS can play an important role in the sustainability while ethically securing their reputation among others. This is the way which can help in publicly excelling in the field of hacking without doing any harm to others (Opensource.com, 2013).

        Proprietary and open source developers seem to share the same ethical and professional responsibility for developing a well-tested and solid code. In the open-source community, the social pressure for avoiding the forking delivers incentives to the project leaders for ensuring the competence of the code. Meanwhile, when a developer of open-source believes that a lot of risks are involved in a certain code, it can be released and rewritten. Even though there is a risk of reputation in such a tasks, there is an opportunity for demonstrating the superiority of the forked product. However, in a proprietary model, the main avenue of a developer is all about blowing a whistle on his employer or manager. Doing so poses a great risk to the livelihood of the person, family, professional standing, and lifestyle. Moreover, the developer might not gain an opportunity again for demonstrating his competency (Smith, 2018).

        By offering free-access to developers for using reliable components that complete significant tasks, development times are increased by the model of open source for a commercial software by making it very unnecessary to create applications from the beginning.

        But when research shows that almost seventy-eight percent of the audited codebases which are include a single vulnerability while fifty-four percent of them could easily be exploited by hackers, it shows clearly that there are security risks associated with the code of open source. Often, such risks do not emerge because of the caliber of an open-source code but because of the mix of elements which are involved in the nature of a model of open source and just how software is managed by a company. Following are some risks which are associated with the security:

Publicity of Exploits of Open Source Software

        An open-source model’s nature is that such projects have universal codes. An advantage is concerned with it as the community of open-source can flag important exploits which they find in codes while giving time to open-source managers for fixing the issues before the information is revealed publicly regarding vulnerabilities. Gradually, these exploits are made available on the NVD or National Vulnerability Database and anyone can view them. This publicity can be used by hackers by targeting the companies that might depend on projects of open-source.

        In 2017, confidential information about almost 143 million individuals was exposed by a credit reporting company and this incident is a major example of this approach. Handling this risk from an organizational point of view actually means determining that exploits of open-source are quite sensitive and hackers can easily achieve a lot by attacking the sensitive components. In order to avoid such consequences, it is important to update quickly (Opensource.com, 2013).

Operational Risks of Open Source Software

        When it comes to utilizing open-source components, enterprise is the main risk that comes from operational ineffectiveness. Failure to keep the note of open source components is very important from an operational point of view and update them quickly. Often, these updates seem to address security vulnerabilities of high-risk while a disaster can be caused by delays similar to the Equifax breach case (Pratt, 2018).

        That is why, it is significant to keep open-source inventory usage over various teams of development not just to ensure transparency and visibility but also to evade different teams while using different models of the components. Handling an inventory has to be a part of a reliable policy on the usage of open-source, and analysis tools of software composition offer a source for enforcing this practice in a manageable and automated way without updating spreadsheets manually. Abandoned projects is actually another issue that starts with a strong involvement from the community of open-source but peters out until there is no one to update.

Developer Malpractices of Open Source Software

        Several risks of security emerge because of the malpractice of developers like pasting and copying codes from universal libraries. First, this is a problem as vulnerabilities in the code might also be copied, and the second one is that there is no possible way a code snippet can be updated and tracked once it exists in the codebase which makes applications susceptible to the future vulnerabilities. It can be avoided with the development of a policy of open-source that forbids pasting and copying snippets from different projects to codebases of applications (Rubens, 2014).

Various available software provide the protection of privacy. Some of such software are as:

VPN of Open Source Software

        This approach is actually commendable when privacy is required at its utmost. Data is re-routed by it through a remote server of proxy and is available as an ad-supported and free application along with a premium version with more features and better performance. For the daily use, it is more than enough as it can easily be activated with only a single click. It can also be used for determining the traffic that has been transferred via a handy graph and through CyberGhost but there are bound spaces on servers and access is gained with patience (Pratt, 2018).

DuckDuckGo of Open Source Software

It is actually a search engine which is offered as a privacy software that doesn’t seem to store data and also doesn’t transfer the items to other websites. Moreover, every user is treated equally by it. At present, it is the first search engine that is conscious of privacy.

Tor

        It is also referred as onion router and is considered as one of the most widely utilized ways of searching and browsing without leaving any tracks of the online activity. It has a network which makes it very difficult to identify or track and is capable of browsing on every site anonymously. For protecting the anonymity, it tasks every communication while including applications and messages, transferring them to a very large system or connection of routers which are then transferred to servers. Ultimately, it becomes very hard for websites to get even a gist of the confidential data. It also utilizes a proxy program for maintaining the privacy of users.

SpiderOak of Open Source Software

        It can be said that Dropbox, iCloud, and OneDrive are quite similar and all of them provide safe cloud storage but don’t keep the personal information safe as they can give access to the government anytime they want.

However, when it comes to SpiderOak, it cannot because the users have various keys of encryption. This provider of cloud storage is actually the best software for privacy for cloud storage it is quite conscious about the privacy and delivers functionality similar to the service providers of mainstream cloud storage (Opensource.com, 2013).

        The civil liberty rights of the user are maintained by a free software. Some other benefits of utilizing such a software include high stability, security, and decreases of software. It also involves more control, education, and strong protection. Open-source and free operation systems like Linux are used at the moment which powers millions of devices other than just servers. Various software packages use open-source and free licenses. The open-source and free application movement are virtual social movements behind the adoption and broad production of an open-source software.

        Cybercrime or computer crime is at its peak. This crime seems to cause serious issues like costing governments, individual users, and businesses millions of dollars on annual basis and same crimes are facilitated by it in realspace like trafficking of vulgar videos and identity theft on a very large scale. But the present plans which are deployed by the law enforcement for combating this crime have proven to be inefficient and ineffective. One such plan is through the increasing use of a universal software in which underlying source code can be accessed by users and might be capable of making modifications it for ameliorating the vulnerabilities that might allow this crime.

        Solutions which are community-based seem to sidestep this by integrating the private players into the controlling crime process. Therefore, a signal is transferred that the prevention of crime depends both on community and government. Stewardship is emphasized by community strategies for the betterment of a larger community which calls on the citizens to see them as the accountable for the betterment of large community. Secondly, such solutions perform better in promoting values related to safety and order than the model of public. A backlash can be produced among residents when only law enforcement is accountable for policies (Pratt, 2018).

The necessity for the policing of community against cybercrime emerges not due to the negative relation among computer users and law enforcement but from the recognition that a model can be implemented for taking the advantage of power of the external actors for preventing this crime. Considering the basic differences among real-space crimes and cybercrimes, prevention is very important in decreasing computer crime. It is actually borne due to the understanding the law enforcement’s reactive model is just ill-equipped and cannot tackle cybercrime.

    Actually, open source licenses can be considered as a source of confusion and not every universal software is disrupted under the same agreement of licensing.

    Open source licences’common types. Free access is given by open source licenses to the application’s source code along with the capability of sharing, modifying, and editing without seeking some special permission. At the moment, there are several licenses. In terms of legal requirements, they can be quite different (Ellis, Hislop, & Burdge, 2017).

Most of them are (Hurley, 2014):

1. GNU General Public Licence (GPL) –

It guarantees and grants various rights to the developers while allowing the users to copy, modify, and distribute the software in the way the user wishes under some specific circumstances.

2. Lesser GPL Licence (LGPL) –

LGPL offers very low number of liberties to work with, as compared to other companies to same standards.

3. Berkeley Standard Distribution Licence (BSD) –

Berkeley Standard Distribution give very friendly and easy access to the license holders. So we can say BSD licenses are very user friendly as compared to other companies

4. Dual licenses -

Double licenses are more attractive and user friendly for the customers. And facilitate the users with easy access and very less limitations.

Open Source vs. Open Data

            If we compare both open source and open data, we will find a lot of common things as well as many differences. The first and one of the most important difference among open source and open data, is the age of both terms. Term open source was established way back in 1998 so this term is almost 21 years old. If we discuss about the term “open data”, this term was established almost more than a decade after the establishment of “open source” in 2009. So we can say that the term was established 11 before the start of “open data.” But open data is being spreading very rapidly all around the world, and have start using Open data more frequently. This is the reason for which open source items are mostly present in open data now days. But it does not mean that all the open source products have lost their importance. Open source is still being followed by a very big number of users. We can still find lots of products based on open source system. But if we discuss about the open access for the users and security as the same time, we can say it is a big challenge for open source and open data as well, both need to give open access with high levels of cyber security.

Copy rights of Open Source Software

        It is always a challenging thing for anyone of us to include others in our work and give them the authority to transform and change things according to their will and after giving all the authorities to others keeps the transparency and security. To maintain all this, we need state to give us some legal security in these matters. State gives us this security by copy rights acts.

    Copy rights act give the security to the administrator that nobody can make any changes without the permission of administrative authority. This makes the business more secure and reliable.

Trade secret of Open Source Software

        There are always some secret strategies and tools behind every successful business. It is very important for the businessman to keep these secrets very secure. It is difficult to maintain these secrets in any ordinary business. But it makes it more challenges to keep those secrets when u are dealing in an open access business. For this issue we do have some software to maintain the security and privacy of the business.

SW patents

    Software patent has never been found satisfactory to maintain the security. Software are being made to make cyber security more and more reliable.

Trademarks of Open Source Software

    Here we have enlisted some of the software, which are registered trademarks. In most countries laws have been made to give security for the registered trademarks but there are few states who give some security to unregistered trademarks as well. Trademark registration give rights of the security to the business.

Economic issues w.r.t

Programmers of Open Source Software

In open source software business normally there are no proper documentations done. Engineers who design the open access software give more importance to the features in place of other security matters. Normally software developers targets specific group of people instead of the whole society. To improve our work, we have to learn from of mistakes and failures. But open source developers have failed to learn from the mistakes. Open source software will get fame and popularity only if the engineers and developers targets to focus the whole society and gives more n more security to the users.

Business of Open Source Software

There are lots of hurdles and challenges for the open source business, and one of the most common issues is the, open source has no proper support system. Software developers have now realize that open source business needs support to get fame n popularity. Now developers are making efforts to gain proper from the ecosystem.

Other most important issue regarding the open source business is the threat to the existence of this business in the future. The question in everyone’s mind is, weather this business will exist in future or will disappear. The answer of this question is very simple. If this business will fulfill the requirement of modern life then it will keep its existence.

Consumer and society of Open Source Software

Open source software has gain a lot of popularity in past few years. Previously these software were being used on experimental basis but in modern era many business tycoons have started to convert their business on the open source software. Though this open source software is comparatively expensive and small industrialist and businessmen cannot afford to use this, but people have great attraction towards this. Open source helps businessmen to do lots stuff very easily and quickly, which helps businessmen to reduce the number of employees.

Most the rapidly growing industries any business have started to adopt this open source software system.

Use value, Market value and monopoly value of Open Source Software

        Open Source Service Market is expected to grow by the two major driving factors that are, Increase in the return of investment and the decrease in the total Ownership cost. The adoption of Open Sources in organizations is expected to grow in all the IT segments in order to achieve flexibility and effective for performing and ensure benefits for instance, accelerated time-to-market, reduced cost and simplified interoperability. In 2017, the North America is expected to secure the largest market size. Following this the entire region is also estimated to dominate the market throughout the forecasted period. Therefore, the organizations are rapidly adopting the open market services. The open market services are used to fulfill the specific requirements of the respective organizations (Pratt, 2018).

Open source software vs free software movement

        The term Free software is not a new term by any mean. The phrase was first used in 1980s when Richard Stallman coined it in his GNU project for creating a free operating system. Richard Stallman established the Free Software Foundation for the support of free software. Likewise, the phrase free software is used for the software that can be adapted and safely run and redistributed by users without legal restraint. In order to considered a free software, it is necessary to respect the four essential freedoms provided by the Free Software Foundation. These four essential freedoms are as following:

Freedom 0 is to run the program with freedom for any purpose.

The freedom 1 is to study that how the program works so it does computing.

Freedom 2 is redistribution of copies with freedom to help neighbor.

Freedom 3 is the freedom of distribution of copies of the modified version among others

        The Open source software is any software that is publically available with the source code under a license. That license gives the right to the users for the study, change and distribution of that particular software as per their wish.  In 1998 the term was coined by a group of individuals who pushed for less ambiguous title than the free software. The groups changed the focus from the freedom to transparency, cost saving, security and other pragmatic benefits. Although the Open Source Software is largely refer to the same software but it is more adaptable for the corporate world. Moreover, there are many supported licenses but the GPL is the most prominent license for the Open Source Software.

Some of the alternatives of the open source sound files are as follow

Sound files of Open Source Software

Audacity of Open Source Software

        The Audacity is a free open source that is used for the sound editing and recording. Moreover, it can also be used for the recording of live audio, records and covert tapes, editing sound files.

WaveShop of Open Source Software

        It is also a free, open source that is used for the audio editing for Window 7/Vista/ XP. The wave shop is light weight, fast and bit perfect. Moreover, the meaning samples are  not altered unless it is needed.

Radium of Open Source Software

        It is a free open source that is used for eth edition of music with a new interface type. Radium is quicker in comparison of normal sequencer interface edition. Moreover, more music data can be fit on the Screen of Radium.

rezound of Open Source Software

It is also a free open source that is aimed to be stable. Primarily it is a graphical audio file editor but it is not limited to Linux operating sytem.

Graphics files of Open Source Software

Affinity Photo of Open Source Software

        This free open source is compatible with the other file formats including Photoshop. Moreover, affinity photo is squarely at the designers and professional photographers. However, it is way cheaper than the Photoshop. Therefore, the creators argue that Affinity photo is actually better than Photoshop.

Sketch

        This is a highly professional vector graphic app that is used for the Creatives. The Creatives has got considerable attention in the design community particularly in the web designers.

GIMP

        The term is an abbreviation for GUN Image Manipulation Program. This free, open source is used as an alternative of Photoshop. The Photoshop has been there from the years of donkey.

HFOSS of Open Source Software

    HFOSS Stand for the Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software. It is also known as Humanitarian FOSS. It is an open source that is used         for the benefits of human conditions in different areas for instance healthcare, education, ecology, disaster management, economic development and may more. ‘

Following are some of the most considerable project of HFOSS (Ellis, Hislop, & Burdge, 2017):

GNOME - Accessibility project

It Develops and fosters the free open source accessibility for the solution of graphical user interface.  (Hurley, 2014)

Water Project –

It is Free and Open Source, software, hardware and reference designs for the monitoring application of water.

Blockly

It is a visual program editor that is primarily used to teach the concepts of programming in the K-12 Environments.

OpenEHR

The GitHub Organization a not for profit foundation working on international level.

cBioPortal

        For the Cancer Genomics the cBioPortal provides visualization, download and analysis of large-scale data sets of cancer genomics.

openCBS

        The Open CBS is a loan tracking software that is used by the microfinance institutions. It is also open-source software.

Endangered-languages

        This resource is used for the development, documentation and conversation of endangered, low, under-resources, or minor languages of humans.

PhoenixForge

        It is space for the community members of University of Chicago. It is used to organized and host the open source software projects.

        For the microfinance institution it is important to give more focus on open source loan tracking software that is open CBS. Moreover, the new applications of HFOSS will be a healthcare application focusing on the disables.

        The initiative of Open Source is a non-profit initiative that is intended to promote the open source software. It has approved more than 80 open source licenses having individual requirements. In order to understating the mean of these rules and requirement for them, the originations are using OSS. However, despite being free, many strings are attached with the open source.

The requirements of licenses can be complex technically as some licenses required developers to make any changes to the source while some don’t. Likewise, some have restricted patent relationship. However, there are risks associated with the language of the licenses.  (Leson, 2015)."

References of Open Source Software

Ellis, H., Hislop, G. W., & Burdge, D. (2017). Courseware: HFOSS Project Evaluation.

Hurley, D. (2014, June 24). 12 challenges for open source projects . Retrieved from https://opensource.com/life/14/6/12-challenges-open-source-projects

Leson, H. (2015, February 18). 11 ways to get involved with Humanitarian FOSS. Retrieved from https://opensource.com/life/15/2/getting-involved-hfoss

Midrack, R. L. (2018, December 12). What is Open Source Software? Retrieved from https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-open-source-software-4147547

Opensource.com. (2013, December 10). What's keeping you from using open source software? Retrieved from https://opensource.com/business/13/12/using-open-source-software

Pratt, M. K. (2018, September 13). 5 open source software problems -- and how to manage them. Retrieved from https://searchcio.techtarget.com/tip/5-open-source-software-problems-and-how-to-manage-them

Rubens, P. (2014, FEBRUARY 11). 7 Reasons Not to Use Open Source Software. Retrieved from https://www.cio.com/article/2378859/7-reasons-not-to-use-open-source-software.html

Smith, T. (2018, May 30). Common Problems With Open Source. Retrieved from https://dzone.com/articles/common-problems-with-open-source

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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