Every time we share a post on the Zerodha tech blog, we get a lot of love from the tech community, but also questions like - Why FOSS? Why be so transparent? No security concerns sharing all this info? So yeah, answers from the man behind the scene - Dr. K

Why Free & Open source software?

1. Superior utility: Pretty much everything in the known universe uses FOSS, from the Mars rovers to our phones to washing machines.
2. Philosophy: Self-reliance, freedom, public good, collective innovation & growth.
3. Cost.

Why be so transparent & make it easy for competition? If everyone thought this, there’d be no open internet or widespread innovation, or Zerodha! We take from FOSS & give back as we can. If talking about tech is a concern for a company, they’ve bigger issues.

No security concerns? FOSS has more eyes & hands working on it than blackbox, proprietary software. Transparency is a far better security model in general than a false sense of security through obscurity. Also brings additional accountability to those making disclosures.

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