100% green web hosting, eco-friendly servers, solar and wind powered services – the list of environmentally friendly products is growing every day. One of the newest hot phrases flung around lately is “organic software.” Exactly what is organic software and how is it implemented into hosted web sites?
The actual meaning
The term “organic software” is simply a rephrasing of open source software that is available to download off of the internet. The software is designed, developed and distributed freely all the while offering complete accessibility to its source code. Because it is available for free download, there is no manufacturing process put into the creation of software disks. You are left with software that makes no carbon footprint or impact on the environment. When we think of the word “organic” we are left with the impressions of something home-grown, without the use of chemicals. In a bit of a leap, the word organic in this case is used to convey simply “home-grown”. So, instead of the mouthful of “free to download open source software,” we can use the term “organic software.”
Software that is organic
Armed with our new, shorter and more eco-friendly phrase, we can now go on the hunt for software that fits this bill. In the realm of web hosting, there are literally thousands of programs out there that could be classified as organic software. Drupal is one such program – a content management system that is developed and designed by a community of developers and is available to freely download. vTiger is an organic customer relationship management piece of software. Some examples of organic design programs are Gimp, Picasa2 and Nvu. A fantastic web server program that definitely can be categorized as organic software is WAMP – Windows Apache MySQL PHP combined into an easy and simple to use server program. All of these programs are open source and are all free to download.
Firefox is the newest to proclaim
Mozilla Firefox has recently put out to the public that it is a 100% piece of organic software. The company states that it can claim this due to Firefox having been created by thousands spanning the globe, the company itself is non-profit and it completely exposes the internal workings (code) of its product. Mozilla firmly believes that by ensuring that the developing community has access to Firefox’s coding, it can only continue to become a better and better product and this benefits all Firefox browser users.
Same song, different dance
It certainly seems like organic software really isn’t something new. Open source technology and programs have been available for many years. However, the reasoning behind the new phraseology lays within the push to be greener, more ecologically friendly. Businesses, software creators, software programmers and even web hosting companies are quickly realizing this is a hot issue and are doing their level best to jump on the bandwagon. What it all comes down to is organic software is just the newest spin on an already eco-friendly system called open source programming.
October 27th, 2009 at 4:52 am
what does it mean by 100% green hosting? i had come across many speaking about green hosting but really dont understand what does it actually mean.