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It's free. Commercial software are amazingly expensive, especially if you come from a country where purchase power is not high.
One said once:
I'm glad copyrights did not exists at time we invented the wheel. We'd all be still running on horses today.
Open source gives you freedome to customize software the way you want it.
Drawbacks are:
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Unorganized steering commitees. When you have a problem, throw a message in the ocean of forums and passively wait for some nice person to answer.
It is not always clear which project is mature, which is not has been abandoned, and which one is good.
Document it yourself. Only few projects are clearly documented.
How to take best out of it ?
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In order to identify active projects, check the forums and the frequency of the message exchanges. Alternately, read some reviews on magazines and try to see who's authoring it and are there still there.
Most importantly, you will understand there is a concept. You take, you give. Some open Source software need your help before reaching point you want them to be. A simple note in a forum is already a contribution as it will help thousands of other readers progress better and build next brick.
1 commentaire:
Good words.
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