I personally believe there is a huge gap between the open-source coding communities and regular computer users that must be mediated. The systems to clearly explain what open source is to friends, do not exist and I feel like members of open source communities overall have done very little to outline the benefits of the open source ideology to the general public.

Let’s face it: if you’re a nerd, you probably think open source software is great. While open source licensing for a product can vary, open source software is free, generally more secure, and support is usually available through community forums. The great thing about some open source projects is that they are disassociated from commercial interests and the decisions being made for a product are considered best for the application, instead of the shareholders. To top it off, if you’re an even bigger fan of open source, you can contribute your own code to a project, write manuals, learn from the code, fix bugs, construct a modification to extend functionality, or assist struggling members within the community.

The sad part is, a lot of non tech-savvy users take advantage of the open source mindset everyday without even knowing it. They experience the benefits of open source indirectly through coding aids for developers such as frameworks, IDE’s, languages, and web server platforms which run and influence a variety of apps and popular websites on a daily basis.

They also experience the benefits of open source principles directly through common open source projects such as VLC media player, Firefox, Thunderbird, the Android operating system, or even Open Office. These applications are used by millions of users everyday, with several of these users not even knowing about the open source ideas which made these products possible to begin with.

I usually have no difficulty in finding an open source alternative to the software I want and often find better alternatives compared to closed source solutions. I’m very pleased with the diversity and quality of open source applications available, but trouble arises when I explain what open source is to my non-computer savvy friends.

Whenever I explain the difference between an open source application and a closed source application, my non-tech savvy friends say things like, “oh, its free? It must really suck” or “open-source software? Sounds too nerdy for me” or even, “it’s free? It must be so hard to use. Other common responses include, “will it give me, like, a virus? Is it glitchy? So, who writes all these open source applications? Adobe? Apple?”. More often than not, I find myself bombarded with these questions and I don’t know where to start, or what to say. By the time I have fully fielded all of their questions, the idea of it seems too skeptical for ordinary users and my explanations get too advanced for them to understand.

I think the root of the issue is that, as a coder, I find myself more personally attached to the idea of open source, to the point that it’s almost too internalized and intuitive to explain; and frankly, a cut-and-paste definition from Wikipedia or Dictionary.com of open source doesn’t cut it. It isn’t just a word; it’s an ideology. It really is hard to explain what open source is to individuals of varying and especially lower levels of computer experience.

The root of the issue also lies in the fact that open source really is too good to be true, so I don’t blame my friends for being skeptical. When you list the advantages of open source (free, more secure, community-driven), it’s almost overbearing; but that doesn’t make it a bad thing. At the heart of its benefits, open source is generally free. As a marketing student, one aspect of psychological pricing includes the idea that a cheap product is automatically considered to be of poor quality; thus, when high quality software is given, especially for free, one assumes it must be terribly written code.

I think the open source communities need to collaborate on publicly addressing such levels of skepticism. I’m not, in any way, saying we should discontinue closed-source applications but I think innovation overall could benefit from greater awareness of the open-source mindset.

Put quite simply, if coders and open source community members spent more time collaborating on how to spread the mindset of open source in a meaningful, simple, and powerful way we’d have more members contributing to open source projects. Open source documentation, tutorials, funding, and coding would experience the benefits of multiple perspectives, more volunteers, and greater accessibility. We’d have more thriving project communities and the general public would appreciate the value/impact of open source and realize that there is something within the ideology itself worth talking about.  I, for one, truly believe there is.

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