ADVANTAGES
OF OPEN SOURCE
1. It’s generally free – it has been estimated that
open source software collectively saves businesses $60 billion a year. These
days for virtually every paid for proprietary software system you will find an
open source version.
2. It’s continually evolving in real time as
developers add to it and modify it, which means it can be better quality and
more secure and less prone to bugs than proprietary systems, because it has so
many users poring over it and weeding out problems.
3. Using open source software also means you are not
locked in to using a particular vendor’s system that only work with their other
systems.
4. You can modify and adapt open source software for
your own business requirements, something that is not possible with proprietary
systems.
5. Created by skillful and talented people. Large and well-established software companies
have the financial capability to hire the best talent in the business to create
their products. Because of this, many people opt to buy computer programs from
these firms because they think they’ll get great value for their money by doing
so.
DISADVANTAGES
OF OPEN SOURCE
1. Because there is no requirement to create a
commercial product that will sell and generate money, open source software can
tend to evolve more in line with developers’ wishes than the needs of the end
user.
2. For the same reason, they can be less
“user-friendly” and not as easy to use because less attention is paid to
developing the user interface.
3. There may also be less support available for when
things go wrong – open source software tends to rely on its community of users
to respond to and fix problems.
4. Although the open source software itself is mostly
free, there may still be some indirect costs involved, such as paying for
external support.
5. Although having an open system means that there are
many people identifying bugs and fixing them, it also means that malicious
users can potentially view it and exploit any vulnerabilities.
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