ASSIGNMENT

SEPTEMBER 2020 SEMESTER

SUBJECT CODE : CWE300

SUBJECT TITLE : WEB ECONOMY

LEVEL : BACHELOR

STUDENT’S NAME : RAJA MUHAMMAD NAVEED

MATRIC NO. : M30409200036

PROGRAMME : BACHELOR IN ACCOUNTING.

ACADEMIC : KIRAN JAVERIA

FACILITATOR

LEARNING CENTRE : PAKISTAN

Question 1

Watch the youtube link at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50R21mblLb0 and answer the

following questions:-

a) Describe ‘the attention economy’ and its objectives.

[5 Marks]

The attention economy works by giving and taking attention to or from other users. The
attention economy is basically a term that is used to show that the internet or social media
works by getting the attention of its user. We all spend hours on different social media
platforms like Facebook, twitter, Instagram etc and these all are examples of the attention
economy. The human minds are now altered in such a way that now “likes” have become a
source of happiness and people are quite happy when they are being liked on social media
platforms.

Different companies are now using the attention economy as there marketing strategies. This
can be very useful for these companies as the can get the attention of the users and sale the
product. That is also how Facebook and many other social media platform are working now
they post ads of different companies and then make significant amount of money from these
ads.

Objectives

Some important objectives of “The attention economy” are:-

1. The primary purpose of the attention economy is to make a consumer purchase a

product

2. It’s the now-a-days used in social to grab the attention of its users

3. Different social media sites use it to gain money from advertisement

4. The Attention economy can also be used to increase the usage of a social media
platform.
b) Discuss how social network is claimed to be the one that runs our attention economy.

[5 Marks]

Social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter are the main source of the attention
economy and they are now almost the owner of this economy. The reason behind this is that
they are making their users glued to their social media sites, as we see in our daily life we
spend hours and hours on these sites without knowing what they are they doing to our brains.
It almost feels like these social media platforms are controlling us and they are really good at
this. As we scroll through our news feed we see many things that we are interested in and
they can predicate what we like and what we don't like. Different Business companies use this
data to check which trend is most popular in a particular area and they set their product
according to the recent trend and launch it into the market.

This simple trick makes the product very easy to retail on the market and a lot of this product
is sold. Other than that the companies are also posting different ads on the social media
platform and the social media platforms sorts the ads according to our taste and liking. Social
media is the soul of the attention economy as we give a lot of attention to the social media.

c) Discuss how it affects the society.

[5 Marks]

Here are some effects of “The attention economy” on the society:-

Social media marketing

Social media marketing has become an important thing in our society and due to this we can
sale or purchase a product, we can check the reputation of a hotel, we can see information
about different places, people and things and these all are possible due to attention economy.

Social media marketing can be used to promote a product in a place and this can also lead to
increase in the sales of this product which is very helpful for a company.

Connectivity
Using the social media apps and websites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter people can
stay connected to each other whether there are in another country or right next room to you.
This has also made different tasks such as remote meetings and many other things possible.

We can also keep ourselves up to date with what’s is happening around the world which
great things are being done in the world and also small things like what will be the weather
tomorrow or to check the rating of a movie that has just been released.

Collection of Rumors

As we all are always using the social media platforms there are a lot of misleading and fake
news and information that is stored on these social media platforms and these fake news can
be potentially destructive for anyone. A person can produce false allegations about another
person or a famous personality and post these false allegations on the social media. This may
lead to various kinds of activities.

Loss of time

As we spend many hours on the social media we waste a lot of time on it and that is why we
are getting more and more addicted to the social media. This wastage of time is very alarming
issue as because we don’t spend time on the things that we should be doing and instead we
waste a lot of our time on it.

Lack of concentration

The addiction of using social media sites can result in loss of concentration on work. As we
see in our daily life that when we are trying to do our work and if we get a message from a
friend or any family member we lose our concentration in our work and the amount of time
required to regain concentration in work can be 20-25 minutes so this leads to loss-age of
time and valuable work that we could do if we were not using our phone.
 “Commercializing open source has failed to community open source”.

Based on the above statement,

a) Give FIVE (5) differences between Commercial Open Source and Community Open Source.
[5 Marks]

Commercial Open Source

1) Commercial open-source software means that a software that can be used for commercial

Purpose.

2) Commercial open-source can be used to generate revenue

3) The license for Commercial open-source is paid and it’s the intellectual property of

Company

4) The company cannot restrict it’s user to not use any part of the software

5) The source code of a Commercial open-source is available to it’s users

Community Open Source

1) Community Open-source software's are made by a community like an educational

department or an organization

2) The Community open-source software’s source code is only available to it’s members

3) The license of Community Open-source software’s is restrictive so that only it’s members
are licensed to see the source code.

4) The community cannot restrict it’s user to not use any part of the software

5) The community open-source software is now very few

b) List THREE (3) advantages and TWO (2) disadvantages for each of the followings:-
i) open-source
ii) proprietary software
[10 Marks]
[Total: 15 Marks]

Open-source software's are those in which anyone can read its source code make changes to
it and distribute it in any ways. The open-source software's are quite popular because they
are free and anyone can make suitable changes according to his/her taste. However, the
proprietary software's are quite the opposite of open-source software’s. These are software’s
whose source code is not given to any of it’s users. The users cannot make changes to the
original software and if they do so legal actions can be taken against them. This leads to a
very secure and safe to use software’s which have wide support for it’s users. These
software’s are also popular as they are easy and safe to use. Both of them have their own
advantages and disadvantages. Some of them are as follows:-

Advantages of open-source:-

1) Free to use

Open-source software's are free of cost. This means that you don’t have to pay money to use
these software's. Anyone can use it at any time without any cost or any subscriptions. That is
why they are very popular in the world. This is very useful for Business and companies as
they don’t have to spend a lot of money just to get software that is used for there work. Due to
open-source software’s these companies can save Billions of dollars and can invest these
onto something more useful and productive

2) Less bugs

Bugs are usually the worst thing in software and open-source software's have less of them.
This is because it’s open-source and if there are any errors and bugs in the software. The
huge community can help it to solve these errors and a bug which makes open-source
software's much more reliable.
3) Flexibility

Open-source software's are very flexible since there source code is easily available and any
one can make changes to it. If a user wants a specific feature to be added in the software
he/she can easily make changes and change the software according to his needs and
requirements.

Disadvantages of open-source:-

1) Potentially harmful

The open-source software's can be harmful for a company or an individual user as anyone
can make changes to it, someone could add malicious code to the software and try to steal
critical information that is very valuable for a company or a user and also this malicious code
can destroy any data that is stored on the computer.

2) Lack of support

There user support of the open-source software’s is not available. So if a problem arises the
user must have to solve it by him/her. There is a community but it doesn't provide 24/7
support service for its users.

Advantages of proprietary software's:-

1) Easy to use

Proprietary software's are very user friendly and they are very easy to use as compared to the
open-source software's. This is because these software's are made especially for the user
and that is why they are easy to use. They also have wide range of support which helps the
user whenever it faces a problem in using the software.

2) Highly Stable

The proprietary software's are highly stable as the developers work around the clock to make
this software's much more better and reliable and less buggy. This is the main reason for the
large amount of users of proprietary software's

3) Much more secure

The propitiatory software's are much more secure and safe to use then open-source
software's. The main reason behind this is the fact that there source code is disclosed and no
one is allowed to make changes to it. Hence, no one can add malicious code to the software.

Disadvantages of propriety software's:-

1) Cannot modify

The one most biggest issue with propriety software is that it’s source code is not available for
its users. Hence, the user cannot change the software and modify it according to his/her
needs. If a user changes the software in any form the company has the right to take legal
actions against the user.

2) Can be expensive to purchase

The proprietary software’s can be expensive the user has to pay the company on order to use
the software or some features of the software are only available when the user pays some
amount to the company. This can be a quite expensive situation for a company that uses the
software and the company must have to pay millions of dollars in order to just use it.

Question 3

a) List the category of the Open Source Licenses. Briefly explain ONE (1) of them.

[4 Marks]

Some important open-source licenses are as follows:-

1) The Apache license 2.0

2) The GNU general purpose license (GPL)

3) The MIT license

4) The Common Development and Distribution license

5) The Eclipse Public license

The Apache license 2.0

The Apache license gives the user the ability to share the software, change the software and
use the software for any purpose. The Apache license is added to the software so that the
user knows what type of licensing the software uses. The license is terminated if the user
sues another for the changing and modification of the source code.

b) With an appropriate example for each, explain the term media technology and web
technology

[6 Marks]

Media Technology

Media is a method which helps a lot of people communicates over the world. Media helps the
people to get knowledge of what is happening in the world and what events are taking places
all over the world. Media technology is just an application of the modern technology to spread
information all over the world. This information can be in any form like text, audio, video, voice
note, message, video games, music, movies etc.

Some examples of the media technology are as follows:-

1) Daily newspaper

2) TV

3) Social media

Web Technology

Web technology is based on how the computer communicates with another computer.
Computer’s cannot understand our language instead they understand the binary language.
That is the mother tongue of the computers and it is basically just zero’s and one’s that the
computer understand so we technology is based on how the user and another computer
communicate with some other computer. The web technology is based on the HTML, CSS
and java script and may other computer languages.

Examples

1) web browser’s like google chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge etc

2) Programming language’s like Java, C++, Python

3) Different internet protocol’s like Http, HTTP, Tcp, UDP.

Question 4

As implementation of open-source continues to grow, experts had warned against common open-

source software problems that would bring challenges to any open source projects. Read an article
from the website https://opensource.com/life/14/6/12-challenges-open-source-projects and
summarise TEN (10) challenges for open source project in 250 - 300 words

[20 Marks]

1) Imperfection

Nothing in this world is perfect and this rule is also for software’s. Open-source software’s
are not perfect and there is a constant need of changing things and making the software
more and more efficient and that requires a lot of work to be done by the community.

2) Coding rules

Every open-source project should follow some kind of coding rule. This coding rule must be
similar for all the open-source community but the developer has the right to follow these
standards or not. It’s all up to him. There are a lot of coding standards out there. These
coding standards make all the code of other developer look similar to each other.

3) Similar license

With the development of open-source software the owner must attach a license to its
software. So that when other developers try to make changes to the software they must
know the terms and agreement of the software. A suitable license must be chosen by the
owner.

4) Dead slow progress

As the open-source project becomes larger and larger more and more developers are being
added to the community this progress of the whole software much slower the normal. The
reason behind this is whenever a new code is submitted to the owner. The owner checks
the code and attaches it to the project. Hence, when more and more developers are added
the progress becomes much slower.

5) Decrease in the security

As the project becomes large, the checking of the code becomes impossible so the security
and integrity of the software’s decreases. Anyone can add harmful content to the code and
that can be destructive to the end user.

6) Self ethics

The community’s members should have personal ethics what to do and what to not do .As
these are the basics morals of a community it becomes challenging when there is an
ungrateful person in the work.

7) Singular Vision

The community if the open-source software should have a shared vision. This is very helpful
for the community as they will focus onto a specific task and will not be deviated from there
way. This also helps in time management and other issues

8) Work management

The more the project grows the developers are needed to maintain the software and work
management becomes quite difficult. As more and more developers add their work it
becomes impossible to check their work.

9) Keeping focus and concentration

It is really important to stay focused and concentrate on a specific task in open-source. By

keeping focus on the goals less time will be loosed in unproductive tasks like meetings
without any purpose etc. It is also really important to listen to other developers and see what
they are doing for the community.

10) Understanding the goals of the project

When the project becomes fairly large it becomes necessary for the developers to know
why the project were created in the first place this also helps to stay on track and lets the
developers realize why the project was created on the first place .