Open Source : I’m a Believer now
Better late than never, I would say. In one of my previous posts, I mentioned how I kept looking for Windows alternatives to open source software, without quite understanding why. Five months later, I am a confirmed Believer in the open source ideology. I’ve mended my ways. And all that is thanks to mainly 2 things:
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My company switching to local Linux-based development (Which resulted in me getting an additional Linux box with 22” monitor)
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Dominic James Humphries, my saviour, for writing this article which changed my thinking for the better.
And the transformation couldn’t have been more complete… I hardly ever open my Windows box now. Only if absolutely necessary, I connect to it throught VNC. And I’ve started to hate IE…and I’ve started to love Pidgin. I use thunderbird now, even if I can’t connect to my company’s calendar through it. (which I could do through Outlook). I open word docs in OpenOffice. And I open PDFs on Evince… had never heard of it before. I’ve started to believe there isn’t anything in this world as cool as Firefox.
I’ve downloaded a host of open source software for my personal lappy which runs Vista. From TrueCrypt to Gimp, from Celestia to Audacity, from VLC Player to GNU Chess : I have it all on my lappy. Whats more… I’ve set up KDE through Cygwin on Vista !! So much for Vista’s user-friendliness…
Speaking of user-friendliness, try going through a section called ‘The myth of user-friendly’ in the article by Humphries I’ve mentioned above (under point 2). Its bound to open your eyes. (assuming, of course, that they are not already open)
Pratibimb / प्रतिबिम्ब 
I do appreciate the success of open source softwares. However, I do not understand why should they be preferred other than the fact that they are free. Like why should one prefer Open Office over Word or Envice over Adobe Reader(which is free too) or Gimp over Photoshop. Pray throw some light…
Devdeep
January 7, 2009 at 8:58 pm
This is what RedHat has to say :
“All software is written with source code. With open source software, the code is protected by a special license that ensures everyone has access to that code. That means no one company can fully own it. Freedom means choice. Choice means power.
That’s why we believe open source is inevitable. It returns control to the customer. You can see the code, change it, learn from it. Bugs are more quickly found and fixed. And when customers don’t like how one vendor is serving them, they can choose another without overhauling their infrastructure. No more technology lock-in. No more monopolies.”
More at : http://www.redhat.com/about/whyopensource/
timir
January 8, 2009 at 7:53 am
A more exhaustive and detailed analysis is given by David A. Wheeler : http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html
But before you really start using Open Source Software, you should adjust your mindset a little bit.
I highly recommend reading this article by Humphries :
http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm , which I’ve also mentioned in my post. He takes Linux and Windows as examples, but the basic concepts are same for all such Open Source – Proprietory software combinations.
timir
January 8, 2009 at 7:59 am