There are a number of things that exist in the open source world without which I do no think I could do my Job. I am a Web Developer. I work on a range of projects using different systems, languages and processes. I work a lot with WordPress as well.
Many aspects of my work revolve around scanning logs, writing and reading code in a text editor and browsing the internet. I have my prefered programs for doing each of those tasks.
This is a set of articles that look at a lof of the open source projects that I rely on to do my job and do it effectively.
Open Source Operating Systems and Server Software
A lot of open source code is enabled by other software, tools, specifications and systems that are also open source. The most obvious enabler is the availability of open source Operating Systems. These are used on local machines but even more common in infrastructure powering systems and services.
Operating Systems
Open Source OS are only possible because of the ability to take many other pieces of OSS and link or modify it in such a way that it works well together as a whole.
I mainly use Linux OS. Ubuntu, Cent OS, CoreOS, Arch. At the heart of them all is the Linux Kernel. All open, all developed in public.
Server Software – Specifically HTTP Servers
Another specific type of software that I rely on is HTTP servers. These servers allow requests and responses to be made between clients and servers – in a user friendly way returning the rich content we expect on the web today.
There are 2 specific softwares that dominate the http server domain. Apache and NGINX.
I'd take a guess at 75% or more of all http requests made over the internet would be responded to by one or the other.
Without both OSs and HTTP servers being available as open source I doubt that the web would be what it is. I expect my job may not exist.
PHP & JavaScript
WordPress is primarily written in PHP with many JavaScript components for use in the browser. PHP is itself an open source language and JavaScript is an open specification.
Coding for WordPress most of the time involves working with pure PHP or JavaScript and then hooking that code into WP with some more code.
MySQL
The application layer of most applications, including WordPress, connect to a data layer that is often a MySQL database. MySQL is another open source project (although at the time of MariaDB creation that was very up in arms).
Node
Node is another popular system that I work with a lot. Essentially it runs JavaScript without a browser.
Many people are first introduced to Node as part of build tools – especially since the usage of task runnings become more popular. Grunt and Gulp run in Node. If you've ever ran a npm install command you've used Node.