Open Source, Free Software

Open source or free software is the predominant type of software used to run this thing called the internet. According to the Free Software Foundation, free software is "software that gives you [...] the freedom to share, study and modify it. We call this free software because the user is free." Free software is distinct from proprietary software in that it is licensed so that the user is guaranteed certain rights: the freedom to see and modify the source code and the freedom to use and copy the software however they want (as long as they don't "close" the software to others).

Most of the software that runs the internet is open source software. This includes GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Apache, PHP, Python, Ruby on Rails — without open source software, there wouldn't be an internet. North-by-South almost exclusively uses open source software in development and deployment of our software applications. That doesn't mean, of course, that the end product must be free or open source — but everything that goes into creating the software for our clients is free.

It is through a process of natural selection (even in the face of billion-dollar marketing campaigns telling people to do otherwise) that free software has come to dominate the internet. Because the source is widely available and tens of thousands of programmers participate in the peer-review process of the code, free software is more stable, more secure and performs better than the commercial, proprietary alternatives created by corporations.

For more information about open source, free software, we recommend the following websites (links open in a new window):

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