What is open source software?
Free software???
Did I just say free software? Well, the operating system that this website, and most websites you will look at, runs on is free, open source software. Open source software has been a viable alternative to paid software for many years now, its just not that well known amoung non technical folks.
The most important difference between software created by the open source communities and commercial software sold by vendors is that open source software is published under licenses that ensure that the source code is available to everyone to inspect, change, download, and explore as they wish. This is the essential meaning of open source: the source code–the language in which the software is written and the key to understanding how the software works–can be obtained and improved by anyone with the right skills.
The choice comes from the huge amount of programs available. Some programs like Firefox (the smoking-hot browser from Mozilla.org) or OpenOffice.org (a suite of word processing, spreadsheet, and related programs) can be downloaded and used by just about anybody (Click here to get to their links). Other open source projects such as Babeldoc or Axkit are mostly useful for software developers.
None of this open source software costs money. Some programs charge subscriptions for support, updates, documentation, or premium versions, but most of those are usable without paying a fee.
The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.
Open Source Initiative
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a non-profit corporation formed to educate about and advocate for the benefits of open source and to build bridges among different constituencies in the open-source community.
Where to get it?
Firstly, check out our links to great open source products here
There are sites that promote just open source software. Personally, I use SourceForge all the time, it really has an amazing variety of open source software which is freely available.
What is SourceForge.net?
SourceForge.net is the world’s largest open source software development web site. They provide free services that helps people build cool stuff and share it with a global audience.
As of February, 2009, more than 230,000 software projects have been registered to use their services by more than 2 million registered users, making SourceForge.net the largest collection of open source tools and applications on the net.
For a concise look into open source software, Click here for an article in Wikipedia.org
For an indepth study of the merits of open source take a look here, but be warned, this is a research paper. ITS LONG, and not for the feint hearted.
I want to know more…
If you want to know more about open source software, or if you need software but not sure how to go about it, please email us at support@softsmart.co.za. We will try to help as far as possible for free, but we do also provide a consultation service to help you get up and running. You really never (almost) need to pay for software again.
Sources:
http://www.opensource.org
http://www.sourceforge.net
http://onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/09/15/what-is-opensource.html
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Tags: open-source, opensource, Software
January 4th, 2010 at 8:31 am
I am using wordpress which is open source as well. The world of the web is dominated by open source then the software world. I would like to see some great SW which is open source and can really challenge theose license SW.
Moderators note: We too use WordPress for this blog. For a list of open source software click here!
January 4th, 2010 at 7:37 pm
Great write up. I use a lot of open source software 2 of my favorites are dotnetnuke and oscommerce. I also use blogengine.net to blog.
There really is a lot of great open source software out there if you have the time to do some research in the area.
January 5th, 2010 at 2:21 pm
open source rocks! love wordpress.
January 6th, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Thanks for the post
As everyone is saying open source is the best !!
January 16th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
I am so happy after knowing about open source software. It is nice to have sources for having software for several purposes in free of cost. These software make computer using more enjoyable.
Thanks.
January 16th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
I”m using Joomla for my website, it’s also an open source. There are lots of extension modules available, some free of charge, some commercial. But also the authors of the free of charge modules propose to donate an amount to be decided by you. I’d recommend you to do so, otherwise they might become discouraged and stop supporting their SW in the end.