Why be a pirate when there are thousands of free, open source, options out there for any kind of imaginable need you or your business may have?
PCWorld have written some wonderful articles on the matter if you want to jump on them and educate yourself on the subject, here open source.
If you didn’t know, there’s something called The Free Software Foundation (FSF) and they just re-launch of its Free Software Directory. This Directory lists over 6,500 programs that are free for any computer user to download, run, use, and share. So, what’s your excuse for copyright infringement? Even though PCWorld makes a good argument about software patents being something that should be relooked, and we should embrace new ways. This database that launched decades ago, and has been mostly under the radar for most of us planet-earth inhabitants, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman in 1985 to support the free software movement. The idea behind it it’s to promotes freedom to study, distribute, create, and modify computer software, under a GNU General Public License. Now it has gone through a revamp and re-boosting as founder Richard Stallman explained “The new version is progress here because it enables a more direct way of submitting new entries and empowers a potentially unlimited number of people to help keep existing entries up-to-date and informative.”
Each entry is individually checked and tested, the FSF says, so users know that any program they come across in the directory will be truly free software, with free documentation and without proprietary software requirements, and most of all safe.
Free in so many ways
These free software not only save you or your company a LOT of greens–about $2325 per desktop, by PCWorld’s calculation–but they also come with many perks, like community support, free documentation, trial of different options until you get the one that works best for your needs, no need to upgrade ad infinitum like many paid versions need to keep the company in business, customization, and most of all quality; imagine thousands and thousands of developers working together fostering their creativity and progress instead of a software created by a handful of developers with their companies, not the users, interest at hand.
Sullivan explained “To most users of the Directory, the key aspect of the new software is that it will make it easier for them to find the program they need. An extensive and flexible category system, plus over 40,000 keywords and more than 40 different fields of information, enhance both simple and advanced searching.” So why wait? Go on it, this is a WIN-WIN situation.
Ahoy scallywags, let’s tell everyone ‘n stop piratin’! Aye?
