My take on open source vs closed source

What programming language do you write your code in? Why?

In the appropriate language for the task. There are general programing languages and there are very specific programing lenguaje. For example R or Matlab are great for statistics and doing Math with the computer. I particularly like R over Mathlab since it is open source, doing work with matrices is a pice of cakes and there is good documentation on the internets. To illustrate: To do some non trivial work with matrices you may write 2-5 lines of R. On the other hand writing the same functionality in Ruby may take 70. You can clearly see how you would choose R over ruby to write a piece of code that deals with matrices. This brings me to Ruby. The claim to fame for ruby is that is optimize for programers happiness and that philosophy rings true in every corner of it.The beauty and simplicity of the lenguaje makes it a joy to work with and you can do a lot with it. My first choice for writing code is Ruby, but I also write a good chunk of CoffeScript, HAML and some Haskell.

Nowadays is not anymore about one programing lenguaje over the over. People are expected to know many and I recommend to try them all and make a conscious decision as to why using one over the other.

Would you choose Open-Source software over closed source software?

Sure. The true is that nowadays everybody uses a mixture of licenses in their technology stack. There may be load balancer that run a version of Linux, Some Virtualization software that runs some version of unix and the application was a mixture of windows app servers and an oracle database. All these components may have different licences and that is ok. It is the norm. I do think that companies that leverage open source technology have a huge advantage as the data we have gathered so far proves open source is better for everybody as a whole. There may be key pieces of the infrastructure whitch may be under a close source licence. Nobody wants to give away the "secret souse", but that does not mean you can not take advantage of open source as opose to a zero sum game of viewing the choice as one or the other.

As a developer, what are the advantages of open source software for you?

• I can improve it.
• I can read from the source of the program I use.
• I can modify the source to make it do what I want.
• The community can improve upon itself.

¿Would you buy a car that you could not repair?

If you had a chance to develop a commercial software that would be very useful for a consumer, would you provide the source code so others could study, change and improve it as well?

I can tell you that - as we - most people do a mixture of licensing. So it becomes a question of what open source libraries to use within your infrastructure and witch parts to built yourself. The winners choice wisely.