Posted by Sheena Girdhar at 7:51 AM Tuesday, May 31, 2011 0

Open Source Examples- JOOMLA


 
Open Source Projects are getting a rapid boost these days. They're encouraged a lot, mainly because of it's great advantages. In this article, I'm going to explain about one of the most famous Open Source Projects worldwide - Joomla.

What is Joomla?

Joomla is a web Content Management System written completely in PHP (Hypertext Pre-processor, one of the most used web languages.) For those readers who don't know..  Web Content Management Systems (abbreviated as CMS) are an easy way of developing websites without having to go through the complete hectic process of hand-coding the whole website. There are many CMSes out there, like Drupal, Wordpress, Joomla etc. But my top choice remains Joomla due to many reasons.

It's Origin

It was developed in August 2005, by the developers of Mambo (another web CMS out of which Joomla originated) Its developers believed that Open Source Projects were a great initiative, and they supported it greatly. They started a website that dealt with open source issues and it is said that idea of Joomla originated from that website. Till today it has been making numerous achievements, and has won many awards, too.
Features

It has many great features.   First of all, it is very easy to use - its installation is fairly easy (although not as easy as some other's like Wordpress') and anyone with basic knowledge of Internet and Computers can do it - all the user needs to do is upload the files to the webserver and configure the MySQL databases. It's User Interface, at website administration is totally easy as well. The Admin can add pages, configure, upload or delete Addons (plugins, components and templates), delete pages, monitor the visitors' IPs (and even ban any), manage banners etc'. The major reason why Joomla is the most famous CMS, I believe, is because of its versatility - anyone who is familiar with PHP coding can code Joomla-compatible Components, plugins and Templates. And for those who don't know PHP coding - they can still get tons of advantages via this feature..as, there are many free components/extensions on the web. Most of them are open source, but there are few which are sharewares. Either way, it is still the major reason for it's grand success. There are extensions for almost anything that we can imagine on web. 

Hosting Issues

Joomla doesn't consume much of the Server CPU's resources, but as a matter of fact, it still is critcised by some as sometimes, if the databases are too big, its speed can slow down drastically, and the php code's Just-In-Time compilation (of the php code) can get slow. But it usually works fine with average Server specifications'. And there are many web-hostings (free as well as paid) that offer pre-installation of Joomla (even cPanels like VistaPanel also have it in their "script installation" feature.

Websites Developed with Joomla

http://www.joomla.org  (The Official Joomla site (also uses Joomla, of course)
http://www.porsche.com.br   (A truly awesome example of how we can use Joomla to the best)
http://www.aghnation.com/ (A great combination of the worlds of Multimedia and Joomla)
Posted by Sheena Girdhar at 7:22 AM Friday, May 27, 2011 0

Examples Of Open Source



 
Posted by Sheena Girdhar at 7:55 AM Wednesday, May 25, 2011 0

Disadvantages of Open Source

The truth is, there are disadvanteges of Open Source Softwares too. Here are some of them that I could think of -
1) Exploiting bugs - For network security and other security products, Open Source softwares should be discouraged.  This is so, because any user can just check the source code, find any exploitable bug and bypass its protections. That is very easy. But in case of proprietary ones,the user would have to first reverse-engineer using debugging (the machine code, which is not high level and is hard to understand without knowledge of assembly language programming)
2) Destroying Closed Source Industry - This is another fact. If open source industry gets too much common, proprietary softwares and the Closed source industry will collapse - this would lead to problems of unemployment, financial problems, stock markets would fall below zero! And this would destroy the whole economic balance of the world market...
3) Ripping codes from commercial softwares - Some times, in some cases, people reverse engineer properietary softwares and declare the source code that they obtained as open source. This is just too unethical, and it's more like cheating. This way the company that created the software also suffers greatly.
4) Many different Versions of same application - Since the application is open source, programmers keep releasing their modified application, this causes a little disturbance in the balance. Users can't download and install "everything" to see which one they like.
5) No support exists for open source software- Once you decide to use open source software you are on your own. Agreed, that lots of help is available on the Internet and there are many self-motivated forums that can help you install and run open source software, there is no qualified support available. You have to figure out on your own how to install and use applications without sabotaging your data and hardware. For instance, every second kid in the neighborhood exhorts you to ditch Windows and switch to Linux; many have lost their years of data trying to make the shift. No help documents and manuals are made available since the software is being changed every second week.
Posted by Sheena Girdhar at 8:44 AM Tuesday, May 24, 2011 0

Benefits of Open source

- Cost savings -: Of course, this is pretty much obvious. Proprietary softwares cost a lot, how can a common man be able to pay so much for each and every software he needs?! For example, Single pc license for Windows 7 ultimate costs around Rs. 9,700
- Choice:  By its very nature, the source code of open source software is available to all, meaning that no one company owns the software. Any company can build upon open source software. It may be operated and maintained by multiple vendors, reducing both barriers to entry and exit. A customer can easily choose another vendor because they are not locked in to one vendor's offering.

- Reliability:  Open source is peer reviewed software, which leads to more reliability. The infrastructure of the Internet is largely composed of open-source programs such as DNS, sendmail, Apache and languages such as HTML and Perl. They have proven to be both reliable and robust under the most strenuous conditions, namely the fast growth of the Internet.Low-cost:  Open source software is often developed through community forums and collaboratives. Developers volunteer their time and expertise, and are coordinated by fewer paid programmers. The lower overhead costs translates into substantial savings, as does the fact that open source software typically does not have a per-seat licensing cost. According to Gartner, open source is even more attractive to businesses during tough economic times. In its 2009 enterprise software spending forecast, the industry analyst predicts that enterprises seeking to cut costs will be drawn to open source software, virtualization technologies and, because of tighter travel budges, unified messaging and collaboration technologies.
-Security:  Open source enables anyone to examine software for security flaws. The continuous and broad peer-review enabled by publicly available source code improves security through the identification and elimination of defects that might otherwise be missed. Gartner for example, recommends the open source Apache Web server as a more secure alternative to closed source Internet Information servers. The availability of source code also facilitates in-depth security reviews and audits by government customers.
- Fast deployment:  With open source software consumers needn't wait years to deploy a solution. Open source software can be “test driven” prior to procurement, and is particularly suitable for inter-agency collaboration, rapid prototyping and experimentation. Both known and unanticipated users can be rapidly provisioned.  
- Your Environment! -Now this may sound crazy, but its true - using open source softwares you can save our environment! You may be wondering how, well the key is simple - proprietary softwares, mostly, are sold in local stores in boxes and CD cases. Whereas, Open Source softwares are downloaded off the internet, millions of CD cases and boxes are created almost every week! If we decrease dependance on proprietary softwares, we can decrease their production, thus saving the environment from degradation.
Posted by Sheena Girdhar at 10:46 PM Monday, May 23, 2011 1 comments

Monetization of Open Source Projects

Now that we've discussed Open Source in a nutshell, you may be wondering "How do the authors of open source softwares make money?!"
Well, that is a very good question. That was exactly the question that I asked when I first heard of it, too. Actually, it maybe hard to believe but sometimes open source softwares are able to generate more money than even proprietary ones! Following are the major ways how they do so -:
1) Paid Support - Not all, but some (infact, many) open source softwares offer paid support. They offer instant support (via Live chat, e-mail, mailing list etc) to those users who buy various support packages. Many open source coders are able to generate enough revenue this way (e.g. RedHat)
2) Paid CDs and/or DVDs - Open source softwares are available to be downloaded from the Internet for free but some open source softwares are available through CDs, which you'd have to buy. CDs are shipped to user's address when he orders.
3) Marketing - Now this is a very important point. The coders can upload Ads (of CPA networks, PPC campaigns, Traffic Exchange etc) on their product's website(s) and the respective companies whose ads they display, pay them for it.
4) Donations - Yes, donations. Donations are also extremely important and effective way for the coders to earn money. When their software gets famous, many people donate them so that the project may not be closed due to financial reasons. Like, recently the world famous free encyclopedia was able to generate more than 5 million US dollars in just few months, only by donations! (Wikipedia's webscript in PHP & javascript is open source, too.)
Posted by Sheena Girdhar at 6:23 AM 0

Key meaning of term Open Source


- In general, open source refers to any program whose source code is made available for use or modification as users or other developers see fit. Open source software is usually developed as a public collaboration and made freely available.


-  Open Source is a certification mark owned by the Open Source Initiative (OSI).Back in 1997, Bruce Perens, a prominent Linux operating system developer, wrote a document concerning the distribution and development of the Debian Linux distribution. He later removed references to Debian and created what is now known as The Open Source Definition Developers of software that is intended to be freely shared and possibly improved and redistributed by others can use the Open Source trademark if their distribution terms conform to the OSI's Open Source Definition. To summarize, the Definition model of distribution gives four freedoms:
- Freedom to run the program for any purpose
-Freedom to study how the program works , adapt it to your needs
-Freedom to redistribute copies
Freedom to improve the program

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