Open Source

What are your opinions on open source software ?

What do you think are the advantages or the disadvantages ???

Why don't you think that schools or government institutions prefer to pay money for (crappy) Microsoft products when they have a free alternative ?

Just imagine a world where every public institution would use open source software, imagine how much money could be saved, and imagine the breakthroughs in science

I did read somewhere that alot of government systems were being moved to open source software, can't remember which country it was for though. I like open source as it tends to breed creativity, although sometimes without a single vision of closed source it can get confusing, how many versions of Linux are there out there? the confusion puts people off and Micro$oft capitalise on that

there are countless Linux distros out there, the result : less viruses more adaptable, and each one is targeted to a specific type of user.

i don't see where the confusion is...everyone gets what they need

i just posted this @ another thread.

I know i'm still learning and i'm no guru in computer science but i like ms. approach. i also like open source but the approach is not correct from my point of view.

I want to see open source projects have a good design report, with use/test cases, documentation and flowcharting instead of simply releasing the code. there is a need for standards but this goes against the open source philosophy. how can i or any other programmer manage and be efficient with just a source code with some annotations and a plain documentation which is not useful. i have been disappointed at firefox codes as well as anaconda.
i hope i did not offend any opensource fan or supporter.

btw, i use linux (vector 5.1 and slackware 10.2 and ubuntu live), windows and solaris. i don't care about the os much. it's about the quality of homework i produce and how much i learn. i'm currently on a vistab2 and i love it.it's a nice os.

for the simple home end user, it's about compatibility and user friendliness. for students, it's about learning and exploring more and more. for developers and company guys, it's about productivity and efficiency.

i love this mess in computing world. it's entertaining.
and no, i don't believe in apple right now. lol.

OpenSource!
I use Linux for my everyday desktop computing.. the only reason for having Windows is so I can play games and watch movies

they pay it because most people barely know how to turn a computer on, and don't seem to be willing to learn much....

otherwise, my server is on OpenSolaris

Yeah you and i know that but most joe blows out there don't, hell some people don't even know there is any alternative to Microsoft, they just think cause it comes with the pc then it must be the best thing for the job.

why is that, more and more people by computers every day. Why do you think that most of them aren't interested in what happends behind the pretty colors of windows ?

My servers are running on freeBSD, my home computers have Mandrake, Suse 8) and Knoppix, the TESTER runs Win 98/2000/XP and the laptop has knoppix as well

I've no clue, they just don't seem to be willing to know, nor do most even know there's an alternative to microsoft...

as for the purchasing, people seem to fillow the crowd... they'll likely just use it to listen to music, do illegal downloading, and make a myspace profile

As the computer grows a more adapatable and versatile tool, less and less people will know or even care about what goes on behind the pretty colours. The flow toward, and beond, object oriented programming demonstrates this trend.

Without a special interest in it you don't need to know a lot about the computer you are using so long as it performs the task you set it, all you need to know is a tiny segment of information related to your field of interest. I belive this is a good thing(I also belive there is a reversal point for this trend, but that's another discussion).

More and more institutions have been switching to opensource solutions in norway, because the experts that are familiar with these systems are so available as to be significantly cheaper than liscenced sofware in many cases.

I'm a big fan of opensource, but it is easy to see why so many prefer the ready made packages they don't have to understand in order to run. It's not an efficient way of doing things, unless you have the interest for it.