Syed Zillay Ali wrote:
Hi,
I have been working in Open Office org and MS Office as well, since
long. I however still wonder, what are the benefits that companies get
by offering a free software? Or it is just a community effort, no
company behind? There are other open source applications also available,
like Sun Office, but they are not free. I'm interested to know about the
free ones..
Without open source:
For example, if you want to use a Word Processor, you have to either
buy it or make it yourself. If you make it yourself, you must develop
your own code, and be aware that this code might break someone’s patent
claims if a programmer happens to stumble across an algorithm that is
already patented. If you buy it, you cannot legally modify it in most
cases. Or if you do, you are, unless you are paid to modify, giving away
your work free to a company who will make a direct profit from this free
work. If you want to create PDFs as part of your project, you will have
to develop your own routines.
With open source:
There is a large amount of open source software that already uses
debugged open-source code and algorithms in a large number of products,
that you can use freely, provided that you distribute the finished
product under the same license as that original source code. So your
word processor may be half done already at zero cost. For example, once
someone has created a free open-source routine to create PDFs, anyone
can use it and incorporate PDF creation in their project. You can modify
your own product, or anyone else’s product as you wish. I know of at
least four different versions of OpenOffice.org unconnected with the
Sun, whose creators have modified OpenOffice.org for their own purposes.
Since anything they do is equally available for use for free by Sun, Sun
has no reason to be concerned.
Sun has claimed to be saving money by not paying for Microsoft Office or
similar products within their organization, and by selling Sun Office at
a low price to business and individuals who want its few extras and want
the support that Sun provides. And certainly, because they can use all
previous open source work, they can develop OpenOffice.org more rapidly
and at a lower cost than reinventing everything anew. It must cost
Microsoft a lot more to develop for Microsoft Office and for Windows, if
they are indeed not using any of the free open source software lying
around to be taken by any open source product.
Closed source software mostly makes sense for limited use software for
specialty markets. If you want to print using high-speed laser printers
at full seed, for example, there is, so far as I know, no open source
software that is satisfactory.
Jim Allan
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