The 5 Most Typical Issues With Developing Open-Source Software

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The 5 Most Typical Issues With Developing Open-Source Software What is Open-Source Software?

Open-Source software is software which source code accessible for anyone to inspect, modify and enhance. ‘Source code’ is the code computer programmers manipulate in order to change the way a piece of software or a program works. Programmers can improve the program by adding features or fixing parts which don’t work efficiently.

Open-source software development is the process wherein an open-source software or a similar software with publicly available code is developed by a project which is of open-source software; these are software products available with source code to study, change and improve.

This article talks about the 5 most typical issues with open-source software development.

The 5 most typical issues with open-source software development.

Many software developers are shifting to open-source software because of the various benefits it offers in terms of flexibility and costs. However, open-source software development isn’t as easy as it sounds.

There are various problems you may encounter and here are the 5 most common ones.

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1) Platform Compatibility – Many applications are only compatible with proprietary software and very few are flexible enough to run both the software. This creates a problem in testing and launching; this means that you will have to review a lot of application platforms before finding one which is compatible with your open-source software. In order to avoid this issue, you should run a comprehensive compatibility analysis of the software that can run on many platforms and incorporate the findings into your software.

2) Pre-release review and issues of timely reporting – The software is released to a few users and reviewed before it is officially released. This stage helps solve bugs and receive feedback from the few users. Open-source software has a small number of users willing to help with reviewing because they know that the software is free after its release, so they can just wait for it to be officially released. To avoid this, you need to market and advertise the software before its release to create some anticipation and entice people to download and review the software. Open-source software relies on input reports from individual users. They contribute in the development of various versions of the software. But, receiving this contribution can be quite troublesome. Most users download the app and never use it and most of them never even report the issues. You can solve this by individually contacting the users and requesting their reports. Therefore, make sure you know their email addresses before they download the software.

3) Competition and Security issues – There’s a lot of competition between individual developers. Each developer will use a different point of view for their software and this will clash with others’ plans. This results in final products which don’t really meet the organizational goals; it is, hence, crucial to encourage the developers to work together to make sure that the organizational goals are met in the end product.

An open-source software is accessible to a lot of developers and users who can change it and adapt it; so, it is easy for malicious programmers to attack the software, too. This can be prevented by developing a strong underlying security framework and make sure you have team developers to tackle security threats.

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4) Not paying enough attention to license rules and requirements – Organizations using OSS need to understand the rules and requirements to be followed. There are many strings attached in terms of IT outsourcing, cybersecurity and e-commerce. These requirements can be complex; some of them require developers to share changes they make to the original source, some of them have patent restrictions, some impact whether the OSS can be used for commercial source. Developers using more than one OSS in any product could find some clash between the two OSS license terms. Companies can face a lot of issues while complying with these terms because at times they can be unclear; however, there are risks depending on these licenses and you need to know them.

Read Also : What is an open-source customization service and how does it work?

5) Failure to manage and maintain the OSS portfolio – OSS has no primary vendor, so experienced developers need to know how to seek out updates, but they often fail to do so. OSS assets at times can be under managed within IT portfolios. Executives need to implement proper programs to manage the OSS and these programs must have processes to find, review and test the updates to ensure that they are secure and will work properly in the enterprise environment. Tech leaders should establish a multitiered system of management to run OSS in mission-critical applications with the most rigorous service level. Managing OSS problems can be very catastrophic; hackers can exploit known vulnerabilities in OSS. To combat this issue, you need to have a process to monitor and keep updating regularly. The management process should remember that OSS updates and patches should be done regularly and constantly addressed.

The biggest challenge for OSS is to find ways to maintain their promise for the next twenty years; there are a lot of new start-ups creating new technology and using OSS as only a hook to generate buss; OSS needs to continue proving its worth to people by combating issues like the ones mentioned above.

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Source : https://www.pr5-articles.com/Articles-of-2020/5-most-typical-issues-developing-opensource-software

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