The very thought of being able to utilize Open Source software has brought about an unstoppable revolution in the coding community, as it forms a nexus of innovation intersecting with collaborative research and development. It has brought about a sea change ever since its inception, particularly with Linux being among the pioneers in this regard. As a result, the modern-day Computer Science industry, apart from the conglomerates raking in money, also provides a pivotal platform for community learning and innovation within the ever-expanding domain.
Moreover, Open Source software also significantly reduces development-related costs, with coders being able to leverage the publicly available code, thereby saving time and resources. Also, by having access to this data, they can gain insights into optimizing their output and bettering their projects.
Let us now look at the technicalities and the sheer impact which Open Source Repositories on GitHub have had in furthering Computer Science’s legacy.
Listing the top GitHub repositories
freeCodeCamp
Arguably the biggest of them all on the platform, this repository, formed in 2014, helps newcomers to settle in. Amongst the mediums available here are CSS, Bootstrap, Git, React etc, through which users on this donor-supported nonprofit organization are able to find their calling. It has garnered more than 3,17,000 stars to date.
Visual Studios (VS) Code
Developed by Microsoft in 2015, this repository permits developers to find solutions for one and all of their needs. Running on macOS, Windows and Linux, this medium allows for comprehensive code editing, navigation, support features, along with an extensibility model with some light integration and debugging capabilities. It is extremely popular on GitHub, with over 1,07,000 stars and 19,000 contributors.
Azure Docs
Yet another initiative by Microsoft is their cloud computing service for building, testing, deploying and hosting applications which are armed with top draw features such as data analytics, DevOps and infrastructure management. Launched in 2005, nearly 7,000 contributors work with this repository, it also being among the most active on GitHub.
This repository also is supported by Excel and Project to help in managing work items allowing for bulk update, entry and export; which overall is a time-saving technique of getting work done, by getting the system to conform to a waterfall software development methodology.
Flutter
Launched in 2017, it is an Open Source UI software development kit developed by Google. Being compatible with both iOS and Android, its engine, written primarily in C++, provides low-level rendering support using Skia’s graphics. It also interfaces with software development kits to assist with file accessibility and plugin support mechanisms.
Hardware-accelerated 2D graphics also make extensive use of layered architectural tools for building, allowing coders to continually add text, graphics and animated content in the form of overlays without affecting the source code. With this versatile Open Source repository having garnered over 1,00,000 stars, it is undisputedly popular among users.
TensorFlow
Released in 2015, it is a popular Open Source GitHub repository for AI and ML, primarily focussing on training and inference of deep neural networks. It also helps to load data meant for training models, after which it can be deployed using TensorFlow Serving. In the years gone by, X (formerly known as Twitter) has made use of this repository to rank posts by importance for users, with them previously appearing on feeds based on reverse chronology.
This repository, having over 1,50,000 stars and thousands of active contributors, is extremely popular among coders who tweak their projects frequently. It has already amassed 1,70,000 stars to date.
First Contributors
As the name suggests, this GitHub repository essentially provides users with a demo of the real deal. Post the tutorial, this page redirects beginners to help them zero in on other repositories on which they could start working.
NocoDB
This repository converts any SQL query into a smart spreadsheet. It requires a database to store metadata of spreadsheet views and external databases, and also permits users to sync schema changes made outside the Graphical User Interface (GUI).
CBL Mariner
An internal Linux platform launched in 2020 for Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure and edgy services, this Open Source GitHub repository consumes limited disk and memory resources. It tends to support package and image based updates.