Some friends and I were discussing the benefits of using Open Source software which is low cost or free (as in beer) versus the equivalent Commercial and close source products. Examples of comparison were
- Photoshop vs. Gimp
- Apache HTTPD vs. IIS
- Windows vs. Open Solaris/OpenBSD/Linux etc.
It seems like we are not the only ones thinking about this topic. Slashdot today posted that CNET has a feature promoting Open Source application alternatives for the average home user, if only to reduce software costs to the end user. It does not include Operating Systems in comparison, so this article appears to be aimed at Windows users.
Read the list of ten Open Source applications CNET believe you need.
Liam said,
December 14, 2007 @ 15:07
As a person who uses half the items listed on the CNet article (Firefox, Pidgen, Infra, Gimp, Audacity, Open Office, VLC) and some others they don’t mention but are quite good (Miro, Linux (Fedora Core, Ubuntu, and Slackware), Thunderbird) I’d have to say open source is the way to go!
I’ve started saving the small company I IT manage for a LOT of money by switching over to open source software instead of ridiculously overpriced mainstream apps.
Sure, there’s some issues, like having to manually install MP3 and WMV support in Linux (although, that’s gotten a LOT easier the last year or so!) and Gimp isn’t as powerful as Photoshop. But it’s close enough for me.
Viva la Open Source!
lantrix said,
December 17, 2007 @ 14:01
I’m working in one of the worlds 10 largest IT companies, and we are on a Project in a big Telco, so its a windows shop. Proprietary city.
Firefox is as far as they allow “free” apps – so I use my mac with all my customised apps along side my windows laptop. It gets some stares, but I’ve had converts (to the mac as well!).
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