Open source software is mainly developed by programmers scattered around the world, but some universities, government agencies, contractors, associations and commercial companies also develop it. Open source software has a close relationship with UNIX and Internet in history. In these systems, many different hardware needs to be supported, and source code distribution is the only feasible way to achieve cross-platform portability. Only a few users have compilers on DOS, Windows and Macintosh platforms, and open source software is even less common. For a more detailed discussion on the open source development model, please refer to "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" written by Eric Raymond. The huge advertising and trademark budget of traditional commercial software has given it too much attention, far exceeding its importance. Traditional commercial software is actually only a small part of all software. Lion is developed by various organizations for their own internal needs. Internal development source code, especially the important source code ordered by the US government, has a license to develop source code. This is actually because most software experts don't write commercial software.

It is difficult to quantitatively describe the overall impact and average income of open source software, but obviously, both of them are widely spread by the public and underestimate their value. Nowadays, many open source softwares are supported by commercial development. At the same time, the success of open source business model and the high productivity and high quality of open source development persuaded Netscape (company name) to develop its browser under the open source license beginning with 1998.

Now there is a huge impetus to promote the open source movement. It is interesting to see that so many traditional business developers have to seek development in order to keep up with him. There have been several exciting waves of development and innovation in the computer industry, such as the first microcomputer in the 1970s, the mass production of personal computers since the mid-1980s, and the rise of the Internet in the same period. Commercial software using open source model may be the next important new trend. Many people in history have developed such a software (that is, the basis of free software), which is referred to as "free software" for short, and the media generally call it "freeware". Unfortunately, both terms have proved to be ambiguous.

For most people, "free" is just the cost of purchase. More important than this initial cost is the cost due to the lack of license restrictions. These are several kinds of software that may be free, but they are obviously not open source software because they have some restrictions or lack open source code.