web design

Web design industry has been influenced significantly by open source software in recent years. The last few years has seen a shift from static websites to the design of dynamic Web sites and web applications powered by powerful content management systems and other useful features. The rise in the popularity of open source software has revolutionised the way a web design company or an experienced web designer builds websites.

Web Design Companies and freelance web designers often claim that it offers many benefits compared to the average commercial software. Commercial products may appear favourable initially, however this could be easily influenced by the way they are marketed and presented to users.  Most commercial products emphasise the features that are common and in high demand. However it is often difficult to measure the intrinsic qualities such as stability and scalability of the application in the long run.

Most open source applications on the other hand are designed and developed by  the developing community themselves for whom design, reliability, adherence to standards and appreciation by the shared community are important.  Open source developers also happen to be some of the most experienced developers and experts in their field as they do not conform to the general  commercial corporate culture where developers usually move on to management positions as a logical career progression.

In addition, those which use open source applications are given complete access to the source code and are easily able to suggest and implement further improvements to the software. Consequently the quality of software produced by the Open Source community sometimes exceeds that produced by purely commercial organisations.

There are many factors that promote better quality of open source software. There are a number of reasons adduced for this:

• Developing teams of open source software value recognition and peer appraisal of the software as important values. Most developers are also end users themselves so there is a better understanding of the context of use while developing the software.

• Authors are likely to consider it a ‘win’ if they can reduce the complexity and improve the maintainability of software. This rarely comes high on the product plan for commercial software.

• Most open source applications are developed by a diverse team of developers and quite often the best solution is adopted instead of only one solution as is the case with most commercial software.

• Codes are freely published and available and users of the software are often involved with correction of issues and improvements themselves. This first hand user involvement often leads to a better quality of end product which is difficult to achieve in a purely commercially driven development.

• As we have discussed earlier, the opens source community consists of some of the most experienced developers in their respective fields. This is often not the case in commercial industry where developers tend to move away into management positions with experience and as such seldom involved directly with development of the product.

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