For comparison I have selected the following software:
- Mozilla Firefox
- Eclipse Java IDE
Mozilla Firefox is an open source free web browser managed by the Mozilla Corporation. Also, an army of volunteers can contribute to browser's development by creating plugins. Recent statistics show, that Firefox is used on almost a quarter of the user personal computers. Mozilla has it's own wiki, where developers post previews of the features of the future versions. Since version 3.0.6 Firefox browser's source code is under the GNU GPL license. The license allows everybody to view the source code, modify it and distribute the software.
Eclipse Java IDE
Eclipse is a multi-language software development environment and a integrated development environment and an extensible plug-in system. It is developed in Java programming language, and by various means of plugins, the platform can be used to develop software in other languages, such as C/C++, PHP, Java. This means that anybody can create a plugin that will support any programming language and even create a new one, which only the developer knows about.
To summarize, I would like to say that both projects look similar. Everybody can contribute and make the software better by writing their own plugins and spreading them to the masses. By doing so, I believe, that this will allow better knowledge and experience sharing between the developers.
