What I love about Open Source Software

I strongly support open source projects for reasons that include the following:

• Open Source allows me to learn about software: By looking at other projects that I find useful, I can learn from peoples mistakes, as well as their successes. This in turn makes me a more efficient and knowledgeable software developer, making me a more valuable asset to my employers.

• Open Source allows me to add new features to software: If I find a software package is missing a feature I require, I can add the feature myself. In a closed source scenario my only choice would be to write a feature request and hope the next release would fulfill my wishes. Please take a look at the OpenSER SNMPStats module that I wrote for a perfect example of adding many new features.
• Open Source allows me to FIX software: I remember a friend who uncovered several bugs in the .NET platform. Microsoft was aware of some of these problems, and stated it would maybe fix these problems in a future .NET release. A year and several thousand dollars later, a fresh new release was available with many of the original bugs. Now pretend the problem was with the GNU C++ compiler or the PHP interpreter. There are tens of thousands of other developers who could look through the source code and potentially offer a fix in a matter of hours. This in turn allows developers to continue with their elegant coding solutions, and save their employers money. My NetSNMP and uShare pages show many examples of fixes and feature additions.

Feel free to look at links on the left for some examples of my Open Source contributions.