WEEK 11: Open Source Software

This week we learned all about open source software. Open source software is any piece of software "for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed with or without modification". This means that most open source software has a thriving community of developers who are constantly working to improve the software and continuously release new updates. One of the best parts about open source software is that its free. Most software that exists today has an open source equivalent, such as Microsoft Office and Open Office or Photoshop and Gimp.

Open source software is quite valuable in the telecom field as most of the required software is absurdly expensive. Final Cut Pro is nearly $1000 on its own, so any opportunity to exchange a piece of software like that for a free open source equivalent is welcomed. However there aren't any editing programs to my knowledge that are open source. There are however, open source equivalents to other production software. Final Draft, a script writing program, has an open source equivalent called Celtx.

Celtx

This is a great example of a piece of open source software designed for the video production industry. Its the open source alternative to the script writing program Final Draft and its supported by an amazing team of developers and distributed online for free.