Reasons to Use Free Software
by
Robert R Norris
People often carry the misconception that free software refers to the price of the software, but in fact, the term has nothing to do with that; instead, it refers to the unrestricted right or freedom to run, study, change, copy, distribute, and improve that particular software, so there is no copyright. In order to do any of these, one will need to have access to the source code, which is a precondition to do them. This is why it is often referred to as Open Source software as well. So why would people want to use this type of software? Well, here are a number of reasons.
If you are looking from the view of an organization, such as at a university or a company, there are a number of advantages. For one, instead of relying on another party to come up with the right technology, using such software will instead allow the organization to have greater control over it. Therefore, whatever decisions are made within the organization towards the technology can be done independently and at any time, whether to bring in something new, take away or include certain aspects, or even redistributing the technology, instead of waiting for another party to take note of the decisions, make changes, and double-check if the software is functioning as decided. In other words, there is more freedom in controlling an organization s technology. Another point is that because free software is usually peer-reviewed, the system is constantly being amended to become better. Going through that also reduces the occurrence of bloatware, which simply takes up a lot of disk space and RAM. Hence, the system tends to be more efficient overall.
As the software is advantageous to organizations, there are also many reasons to use it among individuals. As it is peer-reviewed, the security of the software is much better, so the chances of stumbling upon viruses or malicious code attacks are minimal. And for individuals, one will find that the software runs on higher performance because bugs are fixed as peer reviews, enhancing the software at the same time. Apart from that, it is overall much more cheaper because instead of worrying about the licenses or the lifecycle of the software, with it often peer-reviewed, such costs are cut down. And if you have the knowledge to change software codes to suit your needs, it saves you much more, and it is more convenient because you do not have to hunt high and low for software that works best for you. All in all, free software tends to be good investment overtime if you have the right knowledge to use them.
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