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Why Use Free/Open Source Software?
An Anonymous Coward writes "I came across Why Use Open Source / Free Software? at Linux Today. As the author says in his intro:
"This paper provides quantitative data that, in many cases, using Open Source / Free Source software is a reasonable or even superior approach to using their proprietary competition according to various measures."
Good to see stuff we've known / suspected for some time backed up by real data...."
If you're paranoid enough, you can examine every line of code.
This reason alone is good enough.
Looking at a bunch of graphs deoesn't explain why I use Free Software solutions. Apache's market share might be impressive, but that's not the reason I use Apache on my server and linux on every box. I use Free Software because I like what Free Software has to offer. Even the article's "Non-Quantitative Issues" doesn't adress user preference. Gnome just Feels Good to use and would likely be my choice regardlesss of any superiority of licensing or cold hard technical superiority.
Why use free/open source software when you can get the commercial software for free?
We've all heard how software pirating hurts the commercial software industry, but how about the cheap bastards that would otherwise be using free/open source applications?
The Red Pill
And the nay-sayers, etc, etc about weither or not Linux is going to make it. It certain does give statistics and quantive measurements to make a good analysis of what is going to happen with Linux and it looks positive. I'm glad to see that there's something that PHBs out there are going to read and go "Hey; they're for real! I gotta get a Linux stradegy."
Karma whorin' since 1999
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/Embedded/sak/eval uation/compare/advantage.asp
Working in security, I've been thinking about a similar line as Schneier for a while. Liability is what makes business go round. Software companies need to be held accountable for their mistakes, and made to pay.
But how do we protect some dude who simply sent some code out into the open for free from a lawsuit for millions of dollars in damages because of a bug he made? Simple:
Software companies are only liable for the software up to the amount paid for the software. In other words, if I download RedHat v11.2 and a bug within Sendmail 17 gets my machine r00t3d and my data lost it's my fault.
But if I paid $759.95 for the Datacenter version of the same and am supposed to be getting support I'm damn well getting my money back.
This would at the same time promote free software and guarantee the quality of software we all pay for. Of course there have to be limitations, and other such things, such as necessary registration for locating you to publish fixes. If a customer is notified and sent the patch and still they don't apply it, I mean, at least there was a good effort on part of the company. That could be money off the final lawsuit, or something like that.
Just imagine - my company buys one box of RH and pays $70, therefore RH is only liable for RH. My company buys a site license for Windows for a million, and Microsoft is liable for a million. Talk about a nice incentive.
-Jack Ash
other OS's will have a problem gaining substantial market share. I forget who it David Voies (the DOJ lawyer) before the MS vs DOJ trial and he said that the government had the wrong issue in the trial and that preloads was the smoking gun. He was right. These should have been banned along with the per-processor fee that MS has charged (known as the MS tax).
Well, IE is technically not a browser at all. To call something a "web browser" it must at least adhere to RFC 2616. Well, MSIE does not. To quote the RFC:
Thus, a browser MUST adhere the Content-Type if it's given.
OK, now load IE and try to visit this site, or this site (warning: browser will crash). Note that the content type of these sites is text/plain and thus the text should simply be displayed on screen.
Therefore, IE6 is not a "web browser" and thus cannot be the "better" browser.
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
The demographics suggest MS will loose out in the long run (yah,yah...Keynes...in the long run we're all dead). World demographics support the development and use of OpenSource/FS and, perhaps sooner than later, OS/FS will hold the same advantage MS now has in file monopolies as per MS Office. Once that critical number of users has been reached the question of why pay for proprietory software will become a killing point. Mr. Gates envisions a world wherein all countries and their peoples will bootstrap into the american dream of a 'perfect' capitalist system, but it ain't gonna happen. I suspect what will happen is that proprietory software will have to sell security bigtime and generate closed communities of users who are willing to pay to know their online data has the best possible security and who knows what other highend goodies. The 'world domination' of OpenSource/FS is not a joke it's a demographic given but by then MS will probably have a lock on the big dollar accounts.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
You are misinformed. Acording to Al-Quida sources thay have been successful to get employment at Microsoft and has been able to insert back-doors in the code for Al-Quaidas own use.
Could Micosofts recent bug-hunting time-out be part of thier cover-up for trying to find that backdoor ???
The only safe way to not get infected by unwanted code are to use programs where you can inspect the code.