The Benefits of Open Source Software

As incredible as it sounds, there are businesses and foundations around the world that actively build and distribute software for free. The reason for them doing this depends on company to company, but the advantages to the consumers is incredible.

Back in the 1970′s, computer hobbyists and nerds would create software and distribute it to other programmers for free to try and improve it. That was until a man called Bill Gates who saw a money making opportunity in building software for computers and built Altair BASIC. Rather alarmingly for him, his product was also pirated around and he ended up writing a pointed letter pointing out why software should not be free (try Googling Bill Gates Open Letter).

In the past few years, the open source collective has been gaining a big slice in the software market, probably caused by developing nations who can’t afford the licensing fees of commercial software like Windows, MS Office, Photoshop and even Programming Languages.

There are open source versions of virtually everything, from blogging platforms to email clients. The open source concept has even hit the food and drink market with open source recipes for wine and beer now available on the World Wide Web. I am actually typing this informative article on a piece of open source software called Open Office, a free substitute to MS Word, and it’s running on Ubuntu, an open source substitute to Windows or Mac OS X.

When it comes to websites, there is a lot of free around to run any kind of site. Web development companies such as WordPress and Wikimedia Foundation release software free for webmasters to use. What makes it extremely enticing is that open source customization can be completed by most of companies around the globe.

Deciding on open source software for your site provides a awesome base from which to commence, take for example WordPress is fantastic for probably any sort of website, but with a bit of WordPress customization you can have it meet your exact specifications for a small percentage of the price of coding it from nothing.

Before you order your next computer programme, always check to see if there is an open source option on the market. Especially relevant during these economic conditions, open source scripts could be one way you or your business can drive down its costs.