User empowerment has become a common point of topic when talking about content production and control. And in turn with the rise of audience participation has come about the discussion of open and closed source technology. Open source is software available for the general public to use and modify from its original design free of charge. Open source generally results in mass reproduction and evolution of a single product from creators all around the world.
Open source is all it claims to be, ‘open’ and basically what the internet can be used for, content creation from anyone all around the world, allowing the greatest minds to develop different software without having to be on the small design team that big companies have.
So what’s closed source? closed source is when the code is not shared with the public for anyone to look at or change. Closed source is what you would expect from most businesses, protective of their product to maintain control over their brand and the user experience offered to their customers. Think Apple rather than Android.
But open source could cause some issues. Anyone can use the source to create what they want to, even negative content, for example, 3D printing:
So what can we do about the future for the internet see (here)
More information on open source:
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Serena 
Woah this was actually a really informative post, the definition at the beginning coupled with the visual aids and evidence + the video all made for a great post which actually helped me better understand the concept ! You have clearly done your research and have a firm grasp of the weeks topic, great post.
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Hi, Serena! I really enjoyed this post about the nature of opened and closed sources and your exploration of user empowerment. Also the links were great! They expanded really well from what you were discussing and set up the frame work for real the sense of community that is apparent in open sources, which was similar to what I discussed in my post regarding trajectories of convergence. I’d like to know your opinion that with the ongoing growth of user participation, do you think that the open source community will become to heavily exposed to each other?
Visually the blog is very appealing and works really well 🙂
Keep up the good work! – Harry
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Thankyou, yes I do think that the open souce community will become heavily exposed to each other , and I also think that audinces who havent been exposed to open source will gain curiosity for it and join in, which could leave closed source products in danger
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