Device drivers

Every piece of hard ware makes up the computer or connected to it, will have a device driver that allows the OS to control and communicate with it.There could be hundred of device drivers pre installed with the OS and the right ones for the particular computer set up it loaded on boot up.

device drivers  communicate with the device , e.g a printer driver , The process of how to complete the task if handled by the driver.

Open Source:

Source code is the raw code produced by developers and defines what they want their software to do. It is written by developers using a programming language such as Java.


Open-source software is the direct opposite of closed source. For software to be open source, you must be able to download the source code and make changes to it as you wish. There is a big difference between free software and open source. Free software does not make the source code available. Open-source code tends to have a lot of developers working on it for free, or being sponsored by a larger company. Anyone can join the community of developers to make changes to the code and upload their changes for the rest of the world to see. If the changes are good, they will be merged into the main source code and all users can benefit. Some famous examples of open-source software are Mozilla Firefox and the Linux kernel.


One of the most common licences is the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or GPL) (GNU is a recursive acronym that stands for ‘GNU’s not UNIX’). Linux is under this type of license.



A program is free software, for you, a particular user, if:

You have the freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose. 
You have the freedom to modify the program to suit your needs. (To make this freedom effective in practice, you must have access to the source code, since making changes in a program without having the source code is exceedingly difficult.) 


Pros:

- Free to use for anyone

- Allows developers to create new programs and ideas that can be implemented on a larger scale

- Continually evolving over time

- Modify software to business practices, not possible with proprietary software


Cons:

- High number of bugs

- Bugs can take time to be fixed developers with less support

- Generally harder to use

- Can have underlying costs

- Source code open to malicious users


Questions:

1, Open source software has the source code available in the public domain for viewing and editing.


2. Off the shelf software can be bought online as a download or in a shop on an optical disk. It is ready to use straight away for general tasks for a wide range of users. It cannot be used for specific tasks. Bespoke software is custom designed for a specific purpose by a company for a client that has a specific request, for example software for business. This generally has less support but features can be added on request.


3. GNOME, Apache, OpenOffice.


4. It is better value for money for the government without being locked into proprietary software. It allows flexibility without extra costs.


5. Benefits: lower costs, easier to add new features, it will evolve continually over time. Issues: lower security issues, source code available to malicious users, little to no support, bugs take a while to be fixed.


6. Licenses are needed to stop people using open source software for commercial reasons and making money off a free to use program. However it also stops malicious users from taking software and not sharing their edits with other users, for example GNU license.