Propietary vs Open Source software – the special sauce
As analogies go, they don’t come much better than this one
I love this analogy from Iterative Wonders:
Imagine you go to a famous burger joint. You love the special sauce. You ask the chef for the recipe, and he looks at you like you just asked for his social security number.
“It’s a trade secret,” he says, guarding the vat of mayo with his life.
That is Proprietary Software. You can use it, but you can’t see how it works, you can’t fix it if it breaks, and you definitely can’t add more pickles to it.
Now, imagine a different restaurant.
Here, the chef hands you the recipe. Then he says, “Actually, if you think it needs more garlic, go ahead and add some. If you make it better, write down your changes so everyone else can taste your version. You can keep your version at home, share it with the whole town, or even use it to open your own burger joint across the street, as long as you follow the original recipe’s rules, like giving credit for where it came from.”
That, my friends, is Open Source.
– Iterative Wonders, The code we all share: a love-letter to open source
That is why I love open source software: use it as is or use it to form the basis for a completely new app, as long as you give credit.