Every year, commercial software companies come out with expensive upgrades or new software that they want people to buy. I believe that the majority of people and businesses do not need to spend the hundreds, if not thousands of dollars these companies are seeking. A great alternative to these expensive programs, that a lot of people and businesses are not aware of, is open source software.
Dictionary.com does a good job of defining open source: pertaining to or denoting software whose source code is available free of charge to the public to use, copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute."There is a lot of FREE listed in that definition! The software is free of charge and we are free to make any changes to it that we see fit. Of course to make the changes; you either have to know programming or know somebody that does. A lot of people shy away from open source software; due to concerns about security and support. They think "if it is free, how stable and secure can it be compared to its several hundred dollar counterpart, and will I be able to get support". Most free software that is released has community support. If you have any questions or problems with the software that you can't find in the documentation all you have to do is hop on their forum and ask a question. You will usually get an answer the same day or next. I have even gotten answers on open source forums in less time than I have had to wait on hold for "Peggie". I believe that most open source software is very secure compared to their commercial counterparts. With commercial companies, the software code is locked so nobody other than the company that created it can look at it and modify it to correct any problems it may have in security. With open source software, the whole internet community can collaborate on the software and as soon as somebody finds a flaw or security risk they can submit a change that will be updated shortly. Companies and individuals are not the only ones that can benefit and save money with free software. Governments are currently saving millions of dollars by replacing their expensive commercial software with open source programs. The city of Munich, in Germany, is currently in the process of switching from Microsoft's Windows operating system to an open source version of SuSE Linux. Venezuela passed a law (Decree 3390) mandating a transition to open source in all public agencies. The government of Peru has voted to adopt open source software across all of its offices, the reason they gave for the switch was "to ensure that key pillars of democracy were safeguarded". The Commonwealth of Massachusetts adopted the OpenDocument standard for all of its offices. The United States White House moved its website to servers using the free operating system Linux and the free content management software Drupal in 2009. This is just a sample of the governments that have switched over to open source completely or partially to save money. The next time you go to lay down your hard earned cash for a piece of software that is going to be asking you for some more money in a year or so when it gets upgraded, remember open source software. Here is a small list of some of my favorite free programs next to their expensive counterpart. If you need these programs you could save $2,500 or more. Free Alternative / Expensive Commercial Version OpenOffice / Microsoft Office $119.99 to $499.99 starting at $349.99 if you want database functionality. GIMP / Adobe Photoshop $699 Scribus Adobe InDesign $699 Inkscape / Adobe Illustrator $599 Ubuntu / Windows 7 Ultimate $219.99 To read more about these FREE programs and to find more freebies, check out the BestFreeNet.com.
Save thousands of dollars by using the freebies we have found that are capable of replacing expensive commercial products. http://BestFreeNet.com
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