What does open source mean to Steem Ecology? What OpenSource means to Steem Ecosystem

Following a few months ago steem (github code warehouse) underlying block chain code open source, today steemit official team announced steemit.com source code source (github code warehouse), and based on fairly loose MIT license agreement.

This is undoubtedly a good news. But some users are confused, why open source, the source code is open, then copy, plagiarism is not zero cost, and how can we ensure that the official authority and competitiveness? Here to talk about some of the open source software, some unparalleled advantages.

First we have to understand the relationship between steem and steemit, steem is a point-to-point central chain network, steemit.com is essentially a steem block chain browser, is an application on the steem platform, A view of the data on the steem network, it made the ordinary people easy to understand and accept similar reddit site form, many other third-party developers to develop the site, such as steemstream.com, steemstats.com and so on, Are different views of the same steem network data presentation, focus and interpretation of different angles only. For the relationship between steemit.com and steem, see the relationship between Steem network and Steemit, and others

Steem and steemit.com open source benefits

Obama has asked Sun Chairman Scott McNealy to provide an open source software to the United States of America government benefits of the report, McNealy did not hesitate to suggest to Obama:

"One can see that open source software is more economical, more efficient, and more productive than proprietary software .... The government should install open source software based on open source to improve security, reduce costs and achieve higher quality , The higher the credibility and the lower price .... and all of the above benefits are from open source software.

1. Decentralized development

The so-called three stinkers, arrived on a Zhuge Liang. A team of a small number of developers and a team of hundreds of developers, which team is more likely to present high-quality code? After the opening of the source code, the various gods, the majority of developers can learn to study the source code, the operation of the system have a deeper understanding, and can easily submit bugs, provide patches to discuss the future of software features, which greatly enhance the software development efficiency And quality. Studies have shown that when a developer perceives that his code will be scrutinized by other developers, his code specifications, documentation, and so on will be significantly improved.

More developers to participate, but also often make the realization of open source software close to the industry best to enhance the quality of software to achieve.

In addition to the developers to participate in the majority of ordinary users have a more direct and easy to communicate with the channel channels, found a bug? For some user experience have better suggestions, can be submitted directly to the code warehouse, when the developer to accept your comments, provide feedback or fix the patch, your feeling is not very good?

2.Security

Software is a bug, the key is that you find and fix the number. Steem is still in the beta test phase, the probability of error is almost 100%. It is obviously not efficient and thorough to rely on a small team for security audits. By the majority of community members to review, test the code, often faster and more to find and modify the code. So, steemit.com open source at the same time to launch a security audit reward program is appropriate.

Linus Torvalds (Linux software inventor) famous Linux Law:

Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow
Give enough eye, all the mistakes are superficial.

In addition, due to the characteristics of encrypted digital money items, the user's identity, property is controlled by the private key. Although the encryption from mathematics to ensure that the private key can not be cracked, users have their own private key that has its own right. But how do you know that there are no malicious code on your site to steal your private key at the moment you log in to the site? Open source means that everyone can review the code to understand whether the development of the software implementation as it claims to meet the safety standards, even if you do not know how to read the code does not matter, the community developed, there will always be qualified developers in the discovery Potential risk when standing out.
And in the closed source software, it can only be completely trust the developer unconditionally.

3. Decentralized operation

A diversified ecological environment is easier to achieve. For example, I believe that in the future there will be a lot of geographical, functional and innovative social networking sites in the steem network platform was born. At present steemit.com is the dominant English, which will make many non-English-speaking countries feel uncomfortable. Such as steemit.cn, or newsocialplatform.kr such social network for their own language, they can steemit.com open source code on a small amount of changes, such as filtering only shows the contents of cn tags, and posted on the site user content default Plus cn tag, that is, to achieve a social community for the Chinese community, while retaining a large number of existing code and algorithm has been achieved.

For example, people can not visit facebook, then the Chinese operating team can be based on the fork, increase the WeChat login or other popular social media login in China. Without the need to rely on the development of foreign teams. The so-called non-fork is the meaning of this.

And sometimes even in the local laws and regulations under the constraints of the specific content required to be shielded and reviewed, it can be easier to achieve. That is, the bottom is anti-censorship technology (censorship resistence), but in the view rendering angle has the flexibility. After all, we do not live in a big world together, but the country's laws and regulations are not the same, and sometimes even mutually exclusive, it needs to be able to adapt.

For closed-source software, sometimes the development of enterprise business is subject to a strong software vendor. For example, the vast majority of domestic brokers use Hang Seng Electronics to provide software and interface, some small changes offer high, long cycle, but you can not only helpless to accept.

Therefore, this kind of decentralized operation may greatly increase the ecological diversity of steem, flourishing, thus attracting all kinds of people to join.

4.Network Effect

Did not someone else plagiarize the fruits of your labor? Here is the network effect to play a role. We look at Bitcoin, from the beginning is open source, after a variety of cottage coins, countless coins. But the market value of the largest, and far behind the leader or the bitter currency. This is because the code is easy to copy, but the user community, the economy can not be copied, the resulting network effect is steem the biggest advantage and competition barriers. Yes, steem is not just a social media, it is a unique economic system, a few days later I have time to discuss steem's economy.

The characteristic of a successful network-based product is its network effect. The most typical phenomenon of network effect is: the number of nodes added to the network, the higher the value of the network. For example, you have 0 friends on microseconds, 10 friends and 100 friends of the user experience is completely different. There are 100 friends of the user, may also have 5-10 groups chat different topics. The frequency of this user to use WeChat is likely to be higher than only 10 friends of the user.

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Embrace open source software, steem ecological more projects open source, the more able to promote the rapid development of ecological as a whole. Welcome more entrepreneurs to join.