What is OSS?

Open Source Software („OSS") is software that is distributed with its source code, making it available publicly for use, modification and distribution. There's also FOSS which means Free Open Source Software

How does OSS work?

Open source projects are usually stored in public repositories like in Github, Gitlab or in the git.* subdomain of the creator's website. The code is publicly available and can be downloaded easily. Developers can contribute my commiting commits and pull requests to improve and fix the software.

Advantages

Most IT Students learn coding from contributing to open source projects. It also saves lots of time when using a Open Source Software and everyone can contribute to it as a community

Disadvantages

Open Source Projects are maintained by multiple parties making improvements and modifications regulary which makes the chances of being bug-free low.