Satisfaction with LAMP and Web Open Source

Many computer users complain about Microsoft products, even about the mostly used product of Microsoft: WINDOWS. Familiar complaints include, “they don’t let the user alter his own settings,” and “they don’t leave us free to do whatever we want.” We see the same concept in the for-sale templates and in the servers which are built for lowest user input (like Microsoft Servers, ASP, etc.). The executable binary - .exe - is all you get from closed-source proprietary sources.

Don’t you think the user deserves to see the source files, to understand the error message that keeps on popping up, to learn how to make that widget default to a different directory, or how to add a cool new function? Don’t you think the user should be in charge of his or her own product instead of the monopolizing producer of the program? Once you see the code, you already started down the path of becoming an Open Source programmer. That’s the beauty of Open Source.

Do you really think LINUX was built by a big corporation? Or that the APACHE server was a side tool to newly released software? Or that the PHP language was invented by a group of scientists and licensed for free? All of them were created by some intelligent student or a professional coder who wanted something specific for their needs. After the core was created and released, all interested programmers or those who were in need of new functions contributed to the program somehow. Then in time, they became the foundations of the web as we know it today.

The philosophy of Open Source software among other things is that many hands and eyes make for good software, unlike too many cooks spoiling the soup. Bugs are more likely to be caught, and more importantly, fixed, if everyone has access to the source. As in cryptography, closed systems cannot be proven to be free of flaws or errors. While it’s no guarantee that bugs exist, open systems can be examined for flaws; closed systems can only be tested against known bugs (security through obscurity). It is the “unknown unknowns” that can bite you.

So briefly, it is quite obvious that LAMP (LINUX, APACHE, MySQL, PHP, PERL) dominates the Internet web. The reason is that LAMP gives value to the user input and this makes it easily adaptable for different purposes and very flexible for different usages. If you want programs to use for web purposes which you can easily modify and for which you can learn a lot from and thusly turn into a developer yourself, then do not give up using LAMP or other open source software.

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