Getting Started

Welcome to MakeOpenSource Modules! These brief lessons are here to help you learn or refresh concepts that are key to getting started with open-source development.

Open Source

"Open source" is a blanket term for things that are openly available to use, modify, and distribute. The term FOSS (free and open source software) has been adopted to describe code that is open-source, but it is not the only thing that can be open-source.

For example, the font this paragraph is written in is called Fira Sans, and is completely open source under the SIL Open Font License. We will cover more on licensing in later modules.

Open-source software is instrumental in many fields of software development. Much of it powers the computer you are using now!

The map of ARPANET in March 1972 by UCLA and BBN

Arpanet, shown above, paved the way for the modern day internet, and allowed developers to more easily share code.

Using Modules

Modules will always be freely available and open-source! While we do recommend completing Modules before working on our projects, feel free to come back to any modules once you've completed them as a refresher.

If you have any feedback on our modules, feel free to reach out to us at our email: [email protected].