What is Open source??

Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process

If you’ve used Linux or downloaded certain types of software, you might be familiar with
the term “open source.”
Simply, open source means that the source code to an application
or library is made available publicly for other people to look at and use. There might
be restrictions on what people can do with the code (generally via a license), but it’s publicly
viewable.
Open source software needs an open source license—in contrast to, say, Microsoft Windows, whose source code isn’treadily available.

Software products such as the popular Apache Web server and the
MySQL database system are also available under varying open source licenses and are
routinely improved by unpaid coders.
The open source community is one of sharing knowledge freely and collaborating to
improve the systems and services that most of us use. Although proprietary software will
always have its place, open source is rapidly becoming the de facto way to develop programming
languages, libraries, and other non-application types of software.

Although many developers don’t necessarily open source the code to their
applications, they’ll often release the tools and code tricks to the community so that they
can benefit from the peer review and popularity that results.

Releasing your code as open source isn’t necessarily a bad business decision. It could
actually improve the quality of your code and tools, and make you much better known in
the industry.