WoWInterface and Curse working together to help protect authors and other site-users

[Jalandar]

Originally Posted by Bomyne I personally do not trust open source. It's good in theory, but not in practice. (my web browser is Opera) Just look at some of the open source projects on the internet. The first one coming to mind is Mozilla. Care to guess how many clones there are of Mozilla (not Firefox, Mozilla Suite)?

I can forgive you for this, these types of sentiments are mostly made out of ignorance regarding open source software.

For example, this site you are on right now runs on open source software. It is running on CentOS linux, which is a redistribution of Redhat Enterprise linux sources recompiled and debranded (to comply with the copyright rules).

And the software on the server that is serving up this site is lighttpd, a great open source http server. (Previously it was run on Apache, the most widely used, and open source, web server worldwide).

The software and programming language that runs all the code that brings you the forums, and nearly all the other dynamic features of this site, is PHP, probably the most widely used web scripting language in use worldwide, and open source.

The database storing all the user information and all of the addon information? It's also an open source database engine.

Chance are you have open source software without even knowing it. Own a Tivo? It is running linux. A Broadband router? Chances are good it is running a version of linux for embedded devices, and probably using some form of PHP for their web based interface.

LUA, the very language every WoW addon is written in, is open source.

I could go on and on about how your life is probably touched every single day by open source software, without your knowledge in most cases. The servers that run the complete internet name and number scheme are run using the open source software BIND. Still the most widely used email and messaging servers run worldwide are open source.

Also, did you know that outside the US, Firefox 3 now sees greater use than Internet Explorer 7? And adding up all versions of both software, Firefox is now 10% behind IE overall in Europe?

That you don't "trust" open source is just because you are ignorant about what open source actually is and what it means.