As one of my first posts on our shiny new website, I thought I’d highlight some of the technologies we use. Many of them, if not most, are licensed under some or another Open License, such as the GNU Public License.
To give you an example, Linux, is Open Source. The meaning Open Source, literally means that the application’s Source Code is available to anyone. This is an important fact. Another term to describe Open Source, is “Free Software”.
“Open Source” and “Free Software” in this context mean’s, that you are “Free” to change the code of the application. It does not refer to the price of the software. That said, many Open Source software are absolutely Free, it does not cost anything, and you are Free to change the source code.
Now, many people are not familiar with the Development Process that Software follows, and Open Source are no different. Code gets written, checked into a “Version Control” server, where some other developers “Check-out” the code, and then make changes to that code, it could be improvements, or bug fixes. That code is then again “Checked into” a “Version Control” server where the process get’s repeated.
What the above means is that Open Source code is generally very stable, and secure, and has been worked on by many people, until finally, you, the end user, can download and install the program. Examples of such programs are,
Firefox, Open Office, Java, Gimp Image Editor, Ubuntu Linux and many more ..
We at Buyx Online use Open Source applications. In fact, Open Source plays a pivotal role at Buyx Online. All our servers run Ubuntu Linux, our Database Servers run MySQL, and our Web Servers run Apache.
Our eCommerce websites are build on Magento eCommerce Platform, running on the Zend Framework. Absolutely the latest and gratest.
Our Monitoring solution, runs on an encrypted laptop, it’s only accessible to our Systems Administrators, the application runs on Nagios Network Monitor and Cacti RRD Graphs.
Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be posting more articles, and take a look at each solution in depth
