The short version
Most apps are closed: only the company can see how they work, and only the company can change them. Open source is the opposite. The recipe is published, and anyone may read it, use it, change it and share it.
It is more common than it sounds. Android is built on open source. So is most of the internet: the software running the servers behind websites, and the engines inside the browsers that show them.
A licence sets the rules
Publishing something isn’t enough on its own. A licence says what everyone else may do with it, and there are two main kinds:
- Permissive licences (such as MIT or Apache): do almost anything, even inside a paid product, as long as you keep the credit.
- Share-alike licences (such as the GPL for code, or the ODbL for data): use it freely, but if you improve it and share the result, your improvements must be open too. This stops an open project from being swallowed by a closed one.
How people contribute
Someone spots a problem and proposes a fix. The people who look after the project, its maintainers, review it. If it is good it goes in, with the contributor’s name on it. Nobody has to ask permission to try, and a student in Kuantan and an engineer in Seattle make their case the same way.
Open data is the same idea, for facts
A map is data rather than code, but the idea carries over. OpenStreetMap is often called the Wikipedia of maps: millions of volunteers, and all of it under the ODbL, a share-alike licence. Anyone may use it, companies included, as long as they credit it and share back their improvements to the data.
Bound’s map is built from OpenStreetMap, and the app credits it, as the licence asks.
Why open builds trust
When the recipe is public, claims can be checked. If an app says it doesn’t keep your location, open code lets anyone confirm that. And when a map is open, no single company can raise the price of it, close it or take it away.
What open doesn’t mean
- Not free to run. Someone still pays for the servers that serve it, every month. That is why open projects ask for support.
- Not less safe. Public code gets more eyes on it, and problems are found sooner.
- Not ownerless. Maintainers still decide what goes in, so quality holds.
Is Bound open source?
Partly, and on the way. Bound’s map is built on open data, places drivers add can go back to OpenStreetMap, and we plan to publish the toll lanes and fares drivers share as open data. The app’s own code isn’t public yet. We’ll say so here when that changes.