May the source be with you: an intro to open source software

Funny open-source cartoon with Tux
Open source software: anyone can edit it and make it even more awesome. Here’s a rundown of why.

Open source software. Sounds like another tech buzzword like agile development, MVC frameworks, waterfall models, and so on.

But really, it’s much more cool than all of those.

Simply put, open source software is software that anyone can edit. And because of that, it’s awesome. Read on to see how your favorite open source software (Firefox and Android, for example) works.

How it works

I think it’s easiest to explain open-source software with a little story. Get some popcorn – this has action, drama, and copyright infringement.

Chrome OS: all web, all the time

As you might have noticed, the guys at Google have released (well, not released, they’ve just publicly shown it for the first time; Chromebooks are coming out on June 15) Chromebooks, which are netbooks that run the Chrome OS.

Chrome OS (official site)

More about the actual computers later; the interesting part about the computer is its operating system. Chrome OS is a completely web-based operating system; it’s nothing but Chrome, Google’s web browser. That’s right, the only application on the computer is Chrome.