There will be always thousand of argument when we discuss about Open Source Vs Proprietary Software or Paid License Software. Both had it pros and cons and let’s discuss about benefit of Open Source today.
What is open source?
In simple, it is free to use software and free to modify for your need, and both of this is guarantee by GPL – General Public License.
Continually improving.
Because source code tested and review by thousand of developer, bug are frequently cut along the way before they can make their way to the production system, if there is a bug discover, it will be quickly patches by the community.
Compare with the proprietary license software, if the software company is big enough like Microsoft, they might patch the bugs quickly, unfortunately if the software company with only few developer, it might take time for them to developed the patches and distribute to their client.
Security
Proprietary license software, you have to place your trust on the Software company, because no one out of the company have the chance to review the code. We have no idea how they code the software and what vulnerability it have.
For open source, it constantly review, help to identify and eliminate the vulnerability by the community.
Flexible
Only the software company can change the proprietary software you purchase, you are unable to change the code to meet your environment need.
With open source, you are free to adapt the code to meet your requirement; if you don’t have the knowledge, you can always hire qualify coder to modify it for you.
Cost
Cost is always the major concern for small to medium business, open source is less expensive then proprietary software, it had no licences to purchase, no maintenance contract needed, no compulsory support fees, and of cause commercial support is available for most top tier open source project such as Redhat.
With the above 4 justification, it will be more then enough to convince a company go for open source.
