The Computer Age Essay, Research Paper

Ben Purdue 8/24/01

It is my prediction that the biggest issue we will face in the coming century not only as a nation but also as a planet is finding a blind between security of protected information and freedom of information. I say this because as a computer security consultant I understand the need for security of important information, however I as a programmer I understand such issues as the battle for open source code and freedom of information as a hole. This is a large and complex issue but I will try to break it down to its most basic form. At first when looking at this you may say this is an issue that is only important to people in the computer field, but that is not the case. The battle for open source code effects every consumer in terms of the computer applications you get to use on your home PC/MAC. Let us use as an example a program like Microsoft Word, if Microsoft where to make this a open source application then they would be giving every programmer the ability to make changes to there program. On the other hand there are inherent benefits to open source, such as the ability to (port) the application, or make it run on other operating systems. The programmer could also improve bugs, or add new options. As you can see there is good and bad on both sides of the issue. The challenge will be finding compromises everyone can live with.