The Open Source Development Process

Summary

The open source process is a really important development process that’s revolutionizing the software world because it allows any ol’ freshman with a computer at a public university to go on to become a prominent, well-respected leader in the software industry. Offering the source code to the entire world invites everyone to help make an open source project successful.

Another important benefit of available source code is that developers can read other people’s code to discover the best way to solve certain problems. Throughout this book, you will do just that: learn important open source techniques from Gaim’s source code. In the next chapter, I will introduce the tools you will use in the development of Gaim and other applications.