The open source software development model has made substantial inroads into the mainstream consumer and enterprise markets over the past few years – to the point that even Microsoft is now tentatively testing the waters by supporting the Apache Foundation (the folks behind the ubiquitous open source Tomcat web server) and even contributing some code to the underlying kernel of the open source Linux operating system.

Software created by an open community of contributing developers with full access to pre-compiled source code – how secure and stable can it be?   Such long-held concerns have now largely faded, as robust and secure open source applications have flourished over the past few years.

When it comes to online video, though, open source remains a bit of a work in progress.

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