Open Source Software
I believe that open source software is one of the most important industry revolutions since the internet. I love knowing that when I download source to compile and run that hundreds, sometimes thousands of people before me have looked over and analysed the code, improved and hacked away at it. There is a feeling of security that there is no malicious or dodgy (trend analysis, tracking software etc.) code. It would’ve been exposed and removed long ago.
Open source software, from my personal experience is more robust, reliable and efficient than a lot of software out there. Commercial products rarely reach this level of optimisation. I know that if I had the knowledge and the need, I could customise the product to my needs, adding and removing functionality as I see fit.
My chosen career path of Network Administrator ensure I’m going to spend a lot of time selecting, downloading, testing and using various open source software. I know just how important it is to the industry. System administrators don’t like not knowing what is running on their systems, which incidentally is one of my many problems with windows.
One topic that was raised in class today I found quite interesting. A fair few people were bitching about the price of software, specifically the applications that the uni uses and they feel the need to have. Not one person raised any concerns with video game prices. This leads me to believe these same people who are up in arms about application prices are the ones who will happily fork over $90 for Gran Turismo 4, Resident Evil 4 or Halo 2. I got the impression that people don’t mind paying for games but do for applications.
There is no difference in the skill levels between programmers that develop these applications; it’s the mentality of the consumer. Granted we all think software in general is too expensive and perhaps if application prices were reduced to something similar to that of games we’d see a decrease (or perhaps an increase…) in bitching about prices.
Hacking
The term hacker has become misconstrued over the years through the media mainly, which has lead to a negative public perception of exactly what these people do and their intentions behind their actions.
People don’t realise that hackers are the ones they employ who are the first to clock in in the mornings and the last to clock out at night, the ones that find all the bugs in their projects and do the best work. When they find something wrong, or working inefficiently, fix it or completely revamp it rather than pass it along to someone else. No, people don’t realise hackers set the best examples and produce the best work. They are the people who will penetrate your system, then send you an email telling them how they did it and how to fix it. Their thirst for knowledge is unquenchable.
They’ve been confused with crackers, people who penetrate systems with malicious intent on the mind, whether is website defacements or collecting sensitive data or simply causing as much damage as possible. These people have no honourable intentions, have skill levels that are far below those of real hackers (who more than likely created the tools they are using to break into systems around the world) and are just menaces to society, much like vandals.
Then there is your hacktivists, people who hack and crack their way through programs and servers with a political agenda. People who deface web pages with messages of the Iraq war, starving children in Somalia and other similar messages with the intent of exposing as many people as possible to the human rights injustices of the world.
