Many consider "free" software to be either stolen, low-featured, problem-ridden, poor quality and/or unusable software. It is often said that free software can't compare to commercial (and especially expensive) software. This article quickly dispels these myths. A software's quality (performance, usability, function, stability) is not related to its monetary cost. This article also shares some information and thoughts about the open source and free software movements.

What is open source?

Ready-to-run or packaged software is created by programmers. Software is built (written) by using computer languages. The original building blocks of the software is called the source or source code.

Open source, basically, means that the source code is available -- or open -- for users and other programmers to read, use and possibly re-use in different projects.

Open source promotes software quality and reliability by allowing peer review and advancement and improvement of source code. In addition, by providing source code, standards and ideas are easily shared, reviewed and help foster community use.

Although "open source" is now a buzz term, in fact, it has its origins in development over thirty years old. A variety of code has been written and shared as freeware, public domain or using a variety of free or near-free distribution licenses.

For example: BSD, the software and the license used by a variety of university researchers starting in the late 1970's to rewrite the proprietary and commercial Unix. Over the years, the BSD projects developed complete, usable and free operating systems. They developed ideas, protocols and freely provided the source code for TCP/IP and other networking technologies that now power the internet. In fact, due to its generous license, a lot of BSD source code and ideas are now used in a variety of commercial (such as Mac OS X), proprietary (like miscellaneous firewalls) and free software.

Another example is the GNU project. The GNU project, started around 1985, has the goal of providing free software -- with free referring to freedom, not price. For example, you have the freedom to run the software for any purpose, the freedom to modify the software to match your needs, the freedom to redistribute the software (for free or for a fee), and the freedom to distribute your own modified versions of the software.

Why use open source software?

A lot of open source has been under constant development for several years -- a lot of open source software is very mature. Developers and users have numerous reasons for using open source software:

No or Low-cost -- Free software and operating systems can save hundreds of dollars on just one simple home computer. And it can save thousands of dollars for a small office. The lack of licensing fees can literally save hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars for large organizations and businesses. There is a total cost of ownership when you include support fees, but these should be comparable or a lot less than normal mainstream technical support fees (due to the high security, quality, reliability and stability of open source systems).

Software Quality, Reliability and Stability -- Software that has freely-readable and usable source code can be modified, improved, reviewed, tested, and sampled. Experienced developers and even beginning programmers can add ideas, take ideas and improve code in many ways. This improves quality and, in the long run, improves reliability and stability. For example, numerous open source-based operating systems have shown that they can literally run for years. (This code stability can also save money.)

Improved Security -- Open source code encourages review. It encourages users and programmers to find bugs and security flaws. And when problems are found, a variety of developers can share ideas and quickly fix and distribute fixes. Often fixes (patches) are available before the security flaws are officially announced. Open source code can have bugs just like closed-source, proprietary software. Nevertheless, although some problems are harder to find in proprietary, no-available-source software, these problems usually take a lot longer to be announced, fixed and the updated software distributed.

Crackers take advantage of problems in open source and closed-source software, but it has been proven numerous times, that open source software is fixed faster and is more secure. Due to the open peer review, open source software bugs are usually fixed before they are exploited.

In addition, due to the Unix nature and peer review of source code, computer viruses and trojan horses are rare (and mostly non-existent). And most popular viruses do not work under open source platforms.

Encouragement of open standards and protocols -- Open source code promotes the sharing of ideas. This improves computer ease-of-use. For example, the internet's and world wide web's recently rapid growth is based on open standards and open source code, such as BSD's TCP/IP and DNS (domain name system) code, the NCSA and Apache web servers, and the Sendmail email routing software. Companies and individuals who want to promote their software or ideas make their ideas and software code freely available. Open source fosters innovation by protecting and sharing intellectual property.

By using open source software, platforms can be consolidated -- saving money by enhanced interoperability.

Quick Development -- Open source developers believe in reusing ideas; they believe in sharing code and not reinventing the wheel. Nevertheless, they also believe in doing the task correctly. Ideas and code are rapidly shared and reused in a variety of similar and different projects. Thousands of advanced software projects are in active development.

Well Documented / Variety of Support -- Most popular open source solutions are extremely well documented and a variety of free and commercial technical support options are available. Due to the nature of community development, documentation and instructions are often written from a variety of viewpoints -- creating well-rounded information, instruction and tutorials. In addition, open source projects can't hide usage techniques, due to the free availability of the code. Free technical support is often available in the form of mailing list or newsgroup discussions; nevertheless some background research, knowledge or experience is often required. (Puget Sound Technology is commercial technical support option for open source software.)

Encourage Software Freedom -- The open source model improves consumer choice; it helps reduce major software companies' monopolies, domination and control.

Quantitative measures for why you should consider open source software

This compilation of studies at http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html notes the following:

• Linux is the number one server operating system on the internet.
• Linux is the the number two server operating system sold in 1999.
• Apache is the number one web server on the internet.
• Linux had 80% as many client shipments in 1999 as Apple's MacOS.
• Businesses plan to increase their use of Linux.
• Equivalent open source applications are more reliable, according to a 1995 study.
• Linux is more reliable than Windows NT, according to a 3-month ZDnet experiment.
• Linux is more reliable than Windows NT, according to a one-year Bloor Research experiment.
• Apache webservers had less downtime than Microsoft IIS web servers, according to a 3-month Swiss evaluation.
• Caldera Linux with Apache is 50 percent faster than NT 4.0 with IIS.