There are many examples of open source software, some familiar and widely used (Linux, Open Office, and Firefox come to mind), and others of more limited interest, but sometimes still quite useful. Here’s an example in the latter category.
This is definitely an esoteric example of the utility of open source software. It involves a highly specialized open source application which will not be of interest to most readers, but it does illustrate some important points about the differences between commercial and open source software.
Ftp, the acronym for “file transfer protocol,” is a standard method for transferring files from one computer to another over a network. I occasionally need a Mac ftp client with a few basic capabilities and a reasonable graphical user interface to make it easy to perform simple file transfers over the Internet. For years I used a freeware client that was perfectly adequate for my purposes, but then last year a site that I needed to access about once a month upgraded its ftp server and I was unpleasantly surprised to find my client, even when upgraded to the latest version, could no longer upload to it, no doubt due to some subtle change in security protocols. This type of software incompatibility arises from time to time with commercial product upgrades, and frustrating as it was, I accepted it as par for the course.
I searched the Web for Mac ftp clients and found several commercial ones available. Some were quite impressive, and all provided far more sophisticated features than I required. Most offered trial or promotional versions that expired after a few weeks, which enabled me to verify that they would indeed upload files properly to the upgraded server I needed to access. Although all the products I evaluated were offered at prices that were low to moderate by commercial software standards, given my minimal requirements and infrequent transfers, it seemed more sensible to keep my eye out for a free basic ftp client.
In the course of my search, I had encountered and tried a free client with the unevocative name of Cyberduck, but had found that the available version was incompatible with my older version of Mac OS X. At the time I wasn’t tuned into open source software (although I’d heard mention of it from time to time, it was still largely under my radar, to use one of the metaphors from the seventh chapter), and it didn’t register with me that Cyberduck was an open source project. I mentally characterized it as just another shareware program, especially since it frequently prompts the user to donate to the authors, just as many shareware programs do, and I moved on to trying other ftp clients.
When the light began to dawn about open source software, I searched the Internet for “open source Mac ftp client” and found Cyberduck again. Now that I understood open source software better, I realized that Cyberduck was different from other Mac ftp clients, and that since it was still being actively developed I could expect it to be useful for my purposes in terms of having reliable basic functionality even in beta test versions. I also realized that since open source projects avoid competing directly with one another, there was no point in searching for another open source Mac ftp client – Cyberduck was it!
And I now understood that open source projects typically archive all software releases, including beta-test versions, and keep them available for download. I couldn’t find archived versions on the project site, but understanding better how open source projects work, I was able to find a history listing beta-test releases and guess from the release dates which would probably be compatible with my version of Mac OS X.
Knowing the exact version designations (e.g., “Cyberduck 2.1b3”), I was able to search for archived versions and download them to experiment with. I quickly found a version that would work on my computer and upload to the upgraded server. As one would expect with a beta-test version, some features don’t work properly, but it was perfectly acceptable for my infrequent use. I eventually got around to upgrading my Mac operating system and found that, as expected, I was able to upgrade very smoothly to a newer version of Cyberduck.
Bottom line – understanding open source software better changed my perspective on a particular software product and helped me figure out how to take advantage of it.