Free Open Source Software-Advantages and Disdvantages of OSS

 

What is Free Open-Source Software – Pros and Cons

We are living in a world driven by technological resources. Such resources have become need of the hour. There is very little dispute about it. We all need technical stuffs in some form or the other to carry on with our regular daily affairs as well for official requirements. It will be a weird statement , if some one claims that he or she is not depended on technical resources at all.

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People having financial back up and a good support system can access the best in every field. Life seems to be a cake walk for these categories of people. What about the other set of people who are not financially sound. Can they stay away from technical resources? Can we say, they don't need such support ? How will they fulfill their technical requirements in the absence of enough monetary support ? These are million dollar questions , perhaps we don't have a proper answer to these questions , but there is a silver lining . When it comes to software , a person not having adequate monetary fund to procure softwares can still go ahead and access those resources. How ? If you want to know the answers then you got to read out this article till the end.

Remember while searching for industry's leading software , people often end up with their jaws on the floor due to sticker shop. For large scale industry or corporate organization buying expensive tools and software has never been a big deal. Can we say the same in the context of small businesses or for self employed individuals. The answer is a blunt " No". Even if a package seems fruitful , spending thousands of dollars for the same cannot be justified . Small organizations or individuals usually have crunch of funds.

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This article will come handy for all those people who wants to know more about Free software . They can access such softwares without paying any hefty sum of money . It's a great relief to lot of people who lacks the financial support for the purpose of acquiring softwares.

What is Free Software

Free software movement has been doing the rounds for a long time and that too not for any invalid reason. They are beneficial , no two ways about it. This movement came into limelight in 1985. Free software describe it as “Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. Think of ‘free’ as in ‘free speech,’ not as in ‘free beer.’ Free software is a matter of the users’ freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change, and improve the software.”

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It is important to take into consideration the fact, that free software offers total access to a program's source code. When we talk about proprietary software then the same thing cannot be spoken about. Proprietary software neither allow users access to a program nor offers the liberty to make any alteration or changes to it. It is very rigid in this connection.

Advantages of Free Open Source Software

When you analyse the features of free software and proprietary software , you will find they both more or less offers the same features , but yes proprietary softwares are fairly expensive so price factor distinguishes both.

Free download 

 

One big plus of free softwares are that , they are available for free. Why on Earth someone pay a large amount of money, if the same can be procured free. It's a obvious choice . Very few will turn up to buy the same .

 

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Plenty of choices 

 

You get around 6500 pieces or more of free softwares now a days. There is no dearth of options in this regard. You can go for the one which you feel will suit and serve your purpose.

Massive communities 

 

If you carefully study you will come across a scene whereby you will find that many software programs have large and active communities, extending support for such softwares in the form of publishing blogs and forums. So it's massive undoubtedly.

Vouch for social movement

 

The use of free software clearly supports such movement that enables or supports computer users to be free from any kind of technical surveillience and they also believe, that information about the users or what they do with their devices must not be accessed .

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Scope for further innovation exist 

 

Users are allowed to have source code , they can make changes to programs , they can study such programs and has the liberty to redistribute the modified version or answers. A smart business entrepreneur can use this to good effect by customizing his own business software thereby saving money in the process. So it creates such an environment which leads to further modification as well as customization of the same . Surely, it is a great advantage for all.

Disadvantages  of Free Open Source Software

You could be under an impression, that such free softwares does not suffer from any weakness. You need to revisit your stance once again, if you really feel that way. They do suffer from some major weaknesses, described below : 

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Lagging behind in terms of support system 

 

Some free software programs have got a thin user base so in such a situation it is not possible to extend user support . This is one area where such programs are found to be lacking and lagging behind.

Regular updates not found 

 

It has been observed that members of free software community develop the code in the capacity of unpaid volunteers. We can't rule out the possibilities of certain programs in the directory, not getting updated on time and they may not work properly on new operating systems as well, in some cases. So certain degree of inconvenience may be experienced at times.

Conclusion 

 

This article was an attempt to enlighten our esteemed readers about the pros and cons of free software. After going through this article we sincerely feel esteemed readers of our website would have been exposed to a series of benefits and demerits of such softwares. We hope, you all will appreciate this effort of ours and in case you want to express your point of view or share your feedback on this topic then kindly drop your message in the comment box. 

 

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