Continuing the Open Source Cause

Open Source, Open Source, Open Source. I continue to get head-scratching looks when I mention this or Linux. Family and friends cannot understand why I gave up Windows in place of something free. "Surely that cannot be as good, since it's free," they tell me. What a sad state of affairs when this thought process happens. I would think the same thing. We are conditioned to think that you must pay (and pay handsomely) for software to work properly. You are also then locked into that publisher of the software to their 'vision.' Have an idea to use it better? Too bad. Maybe they will implement that in the new version, of which you will pay once again, but too bad for you in the immediate future.

That's where all who do not know about Linux are wrong. Linux just gets me. I definitely cannot see all these huge amounts of paid software. For instance, working in just one school, to purchase one piece of software for approximately 100 computers totals $30,000. I could buy a car for that. And do we receive training for this? Nope. Ways to integrate? Nope. Do they come and install? Nope. They send a disc, and even a file through email these days, and that's the end of it. Well, Linux does not give you any of those things either, but then they don't charge you either. Come to think of it, the communities for the different OS distros (operating system distributions, think Windows XP, Windows ME, Windows NT, etc for Linux: examples of Ubuntu, Edubuntu, SUSE, Fedora, etc) provide more and better support. Many have call centers to use for FREE, forum boards, email lists, and even support groups in major cities.

Then software. You can pretty much find a comparable piece of software in a Linux version. Want Photoshop? Use the Gimp. Want Dreamweaver? Then check out Quanta, Screem, or nVU. Inspiration? Look at Dia. And that's the power of open source. Yes, these are free, but open source means that the source code is available to you. You can make changes to the code for your own benefit. The question becomes can you do that? Yes, but make sure to provide a copy of the revised code to the developers, and allow others the possibility to use your changes.

How cool! I will continue to update you on this in the future!