Hello and welcome (back) to my blog!
Today I am going to write about the advantages for organisations to use F/OSS* instead of proprietary software. Well, some of them at least, because the main purpose of this piece of writing is to have a starting point for a more practice-oriented point of view on the matter later on. That should be more fun to read about, and if I will feel the need to add something “theoretical” I will probably do so in the blog post of that particular week.
Anyway, here we go:
1) Access to the source code and the rights to modify it, guarantees the possibility to lengthen the life cycle of a product that the organisation makes use of. Even if the publisher of the software does not officially support it any more. So for example file formats that are “End of Life” can still be used if it is necessary to do so (→ opening older, archived files).
For example the Open Document Format** will (theoretically speaking) always be usable, even if there are no office applications left that officially support it. Though unfortunately this is not always realised by companies and other institutes, thus resulting in the continued use of patented file formats. Thus when the owner of the technology decides to switch to a different format, the previous format might be “dropped”. This way organisations (and individuals) will sooner or later be “forced” to adopt the new file type, even when they actually have reasons to not do so (e.g. loosing the ability to open older files, technical flaws in the new format like unnecessarily large files, or interoperability issues).
2) The software is allowed to be modified, so it is possible for the organisation to add new features, solve bugs and do security fixes, as long as the requirements of the license are not violated. The latter usually means that the made changes are supposed to be published (including the source code!) or given to the development team that made the software. If the application (or other software technology, e.g. a file format) is officially discontinued, it can thus get a second life within the organisation (using it internally).
3) Individuals or companies other than the publisher are allowed to give technical support, that may be better or cheaper than support from the publisher of the software. So the organisations using the software are not dependent on one supplier.
4) License costs are often lower, because of the lower costs for the developers. This is not always the case though. Anyway, I will not discuss it now, because it may be better to write a separate blog post about such things.
Maybe I forgot to put certain things in the list, but at the moment of writing I care little. We have got a good starting point now, and all of you should have a clue for what I am writing about. I will try to get onto real life cases (or something similar) next time and after, because I will get way too boring if I will keep making blog posts like these.
Until next time!
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* See my first post for a definition of this term.
** This “family” of formats should not be confused with Adobe PDF.
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