So, by benefitting do you include many-eyes? Do you include GNU and other OSS software under “Linux?” Can you code?

Linux, the kernel, is hard to take advantage of. It’s very large, very complex, very monolithic, and has a very unforgiving and overloaded community of core developers.

GNU is a bit easier. The source codes are smaller, more focused, and easier to learn from or contribute to.

OSS tools in general are the easiest, because the programming languages vary widely, and you aren’t forced to program in C. OSS maintainers may be more friendly and welcoming to contributors. And even if you’re not a programmer, you can always contribute documentation fixes, translations, logos, whatever is in your capability.

I’m gonna be honest, I may know how to manage Linux, servers, and the like, but I don’t know shit about coding actual applications. But that doesn’t mean I still don’t benefit from Linux’s open source nature. When an application doesn’t work, or I feel the need to change something, there’s always someone smarter than me who has a patch or a change that I can use.

If I find bugs that affect me or want to add features, I can tackle that myself and send them the patches. I’ve already done this to great extent with LibreOffice and Avogadro 2, plus some small contributions to other programs.

For someone still early on in coding, open-source provides some comfort as folks with light years more experience help to ensure the programs do as intented plus instead of having to buy software I’m able to throw spare cash at projectes I enjoy when it makes sense.

For me is less about changing the code myself and more into being able to talk with other people to solve it’s issues, in my case I’ve had reported some bugs for my distro maintainers that they not only responded but fixed it in a good matter of time, something that I can’t be sure will happen with other proprietary OS.

I take advantage of it by having tried and failed to make a miniscule change in two separate programs. AMA. 😎