A Glimpse of Open Source Community | Bo Peng | TEDxYouth@JLHS

Introduction to Open Source and its Community

• Open source is the foundation of the world, and everyone benefits from it every day, which is why it's essential to care about open source and its community (25s).
• A personal story about building a website during the COVID-19 pandemic using open source components to provide a service like Zoom or Teams meeting with more stable connections and higher resolution is an example of the community's offerings (36s).
• The open source community has also provided opportunities to explore projects like Stable Diffusion, an artificial intelligence model that can generate images according to the text input (1m13s).
• Open source community means a place to share new ideas, work together, help each other, and make the world better, which is characterized by helpful and unselfish people (1m47s).

The Nature of Open Source Projects

• The most important characteristic of the open source community is that they work around open source projects, which are publicly available code that is free for everyone to use, edit, and distribute (2m8s).
• Open source projects rely on many people to develop and administer, and they are all volunteers (2m27s).
• The history of open source software dates back to the 1950s, with the first success being the E2 system, a software released by Univac for free, which required users to send any improvements back to Univac (2m42s).
• Nowadays, open source software is all around us, and examples include VLC media player, Geogebra, and Linux (4m19s).

Open Source vs. Commercial Software

• Commercial software, on the other hand, requires payment to use, unlike open source software (5m13s).
• Open source software has several advantages over commercial software, including being cheap, reliable, diverse, and open, allowing users to communicate with developers and report issues or suggest changes (5m29s).
• Most open source software is free of charge, can be used at any time and anywhere without paying, and is reliable due to being led by geniuses and tested by many people (5m36s).
• Open source software is diverse because it caters to different needs, and people can develop various types of software to meet these needs (5m55s).

Challenges Faced by Open Source Software

• Despite its advantages, open source software faces serious problems, including internal disagreements, difficulties in finding maintainers, and a lack of support, both spiritually and financially (6m20s).
• An example of internal disagreements is the case of Nginx, the world's most welcomed web server, where a main developer was dissatisfied with a company taking over the project and decided to create a fork, impacting the community and development of the project (6m48s).
• Forking, or creating a copy of an open source project and making changes, can bring diversity but also makes it difficult for developers to assemble people and work on tasks if there are too many forks (7m32s).
• Financial problems are also a significant issue, as seen in the case of the CGS web framework, which is used in about 80% of the world's websites but had a developer who devoted himself to the project for 9 years and decided to give up due to financial problems, earning only $400 per month (8m18s).

Financial Issues in Open Source Development

• The difference between business companies and individual developers contributes to financial problems, as companies can negotiate and pay for services, but individual developers often do not receive sufficient financial support (9m35s).
• An example of a company negotiating with Microsoft to use their SQL server Enterprise highlights the significant amount of money involved in such transactions, which is often not the case for individual open source developers (9m51s).
• Open source software developers often struggle financially, as seen in the example of the author of CGS, who had to consider giving up the project due to low income and high development costs (10m38s).
• The lack of financial support can lead to the abandonment of open source projects, which can have severe consequences, such as the case where a stranger took over a project and stole users' information (11m50s).
• Open source projects can fail due to various reasons, including the author's lack of interest or financial struggles, which can lead to the community being left without the necessary support (12m21s).

The Importance of Sustainability in Open Source

• Open source software is the foundation of today's world, but it is fragile and can be easily abandoned, making it essential to consider its future (12m57s).
• Developers should adopt a sustainable development approach, transfer knowledge to the community, and promote their projects to ensure their continuation (13m24s).
• Developers should also make use of rich media to promote their projects, create open and reasonable norms, and care for their users to enhance the project's sustainability (13m53s).

Contributing to Open Source: Developers and Individuals

• The proportion of different contributors should be balanced to avoid the project being led by a single person, and individuals can increase their value by contributing to open source software (14m38s).
• Ordinary people can help by writing documents, giving advice, and promoting open source culture, even if they cannot write code (15m22s).
• Individuals can also benefit from contributing to open source software by including it in their resume, giving lectures, or writing books, as seen in the example of the father of Pascal (14m54s).

Supporting Open Source through Donations and Advocacy

• Recommending Linux to friends and considering donations to open-source software developers is a way to support the community, as many developers rely on small donations, such as the cost of a cup of coffee or tea (16m1s).

Enterprise Involvement in Open Source

• Enterprises can contribute to open-source projects by hiring developers, allowing them to work on weekdays, and providing consulting services to users, which can establish the company's reputation and lead to technical improvements (16m20s).
• This collaboration can be a win-win deal, as companies can profit from providing services, and developers can earn money for their work (16m37s).
• Some companies, like Red Hat, provide consulting services and allow users to pay for preview versions of the latest features (16m52s).

Government Support for Open Source

• Governments can play a crucial role in supporting open-source developers by making laws to protect their copyrights, similar to laws protecting artists' copyrights (17m44s).
• Governments can also help open-source developers, as seen in Germany and America (18m11s).

Addressing the Challenges and Promoting Open Source

• Open-source software has several advantages, including being cheap, reliable, diverse, and open, but it also has some drawbacks, such as agreements and difficulties in finding maintainers (18m30s).
• To address these issues, proper norms can be set, open-source culture can be promoted, and donations can be made to encourage developers (18m53s).
• By finding solutions to the challenges, open-source software can become more widely accepted and supported (19m2s).
• Developers should expose their projects to the public to increase visibility and attract more participants (19m23s).
• A common misconception is that open-source software is only a free alternative to commercial software, but developers can create unique features that commercial software does not have (19m41s).
• Ordinary people can help by letting go of stereotypes about open-source software and participating in the process to improve it (20m8s).