Open Source Software

This post is a part of our Marketer's Guide to Drupal 8 series. We created this guide to walk you through considerations for choosing an open source CMS, plus case studies and CMO advice to bring your site to the next level.

We all have heard the debate about Open Source Software and Closed or Proprietary; but what is the real difference?

Simply: 

Open source software is available for the public to use and modify from its original design free of charge. 

versus

Web development can be complicated. When it comes to contributing to Drupal, either on one’s own time or as part of a job, one of the biggest problems beginners have is getting all of the tools working correctly. It can also be a source of frustration to people with plenty of experience too - maybe they would prefer to put time into writing witty blog posts, designing the perfect rounded corner, or throwing snowballs with their children, rather than dealing with server configuration haiku.

Enterprises, small and large, public and private, use Intranets to maintain continuity of information access and ease of remote collaboration. Traditionally, Intranets have been built on proprietary platforms such as Sharepoint or Jive. But an open-source Drupal Intranet is becoming an increasingly popular and more viable option, as we've seen with clients like Stanford University and Curtiss-Wright.

According to freesoftwaremagazine.com, the adoption of Open Source Software (OSS) results in savings of over $60 billion per year. But wait a minute, what is OSS?