[Techtalk] Open Source

[Mary]

On Tue, Nov 29, 2005, The Gasman wrote:
> Does anyone know how I can view open source code? For instance, is it
> a place where I can go (website) to view open source programming code
> which operates Linux software??

Typically source files (normally packaged in tar.gz form, which is a
compressed archive) are available from the project's website for
download. It's not all that common to actually view the source through a
web browser.

So what I'd do is this: download some source from a website and view it
in a programmer's text editor (*not* a word processor, programming
languages are written in plain text).

Finding the software: go to http://freshmeat.net/ and click on
individual projects. You will often find a tar/BZ2 link, which you
can download. Open the archive file in an archive extractor (WinZip for
Windows, file-roller and others for Linux). Then open some files in a
programmer's text editor. See for example:

 - http://www.textpad.com/ - Textpad for Windows
 - gvim for Linux

Note that open source software varies a great deal in terms of
programming language, programming style, quality and reliability. What's
the reason you want to look at it? People might have suggestions for
particular code to look at.

-Mary