What are the reasons you use open source software?
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I come from, in 1961 while a senior in high school, IBM tabulator equipment -- punch, tabulator, sorter, calculator (what a monster that thing was). Card decks, programming with jumper cables, the whole bit. A brief foray with 1401 and, thankfully, went to the Navy (ours) with 10 months worth of school learning aviation electronics (to become an aviation fire control technician [fire control is not putting them out, it's starting them]).
Went from there to American Motors (in 1972) working in safety, emissions, fuel economy in the labs. First "real" computer system was a Honeywell mainframe GECOS operating system recently inherited from General Electric -- the General Comprehensive Operating System turned out to be quite similar to Unix. Nice machine, nice OS, worked on a Teletype ASR 33, tape punch (to store programs and data). Contrary to what IBM was making, the Honeywell was a joy to work on.
In the early 80s (I think) here comes Popular Electronics with a real programmable operating system (that would be Digital Research DOS) that you programmed with flipping switches. Actually added a keyboard with a lot of fooling around along with storage (ala ASR 33) and got down to assembly language. Later added BASIC. Later added an actual terminal (A Beehive) and replaced the original S-100 board with a Cromemco board and more RAM (on the order of 32M).
One thing led to another, I became a VAR for Cromemco, learned their multiuser, multitasking Cromix OS for which I learned C right out of the 1978 K & R. Cromix was a Unix Look- Work Alike OS. Couple of years later Cromemco released a dual boot OS system, Cromix and Unix (System 3) running on a 50M hard drive, 64K of RAM and it was off to the races.
I got a source license for System V R4 (on 9-track tape), ported it onto a bigger, better, faster Cromemco box and was a happy camper. I did branch into data base (Informix) originally on the Cromix system, later on the Unix system and did a lot of work designing data bases (still do). Informix was developed on Cromemco (and other) 16-bit boxes and worked just fine then worked just fine when it went SQL (IBM still markets it).
I also branched into teaching a Unix course offered by Marygrove College; eight weeks, full time (like 40 hours per), best training material I've ever seen and, dang, did I learn a lot more that I thought I knew. Everything from logging in through shell programming to C programming to system administration primarily aimed at folks in the business looking to offer a more complete skill set.
Right about that time there was this kid in Finland that came up with an operating system and somebody made up a set of floppies with the OS, utilities, documentation, the whole bit. I learned a lot.
Went to work at a health care auditing and analysis company (for the last twelve years before I retired). A Sun farm, Solaris (loved it). And, a sysadmin friend to whom I bitched about Win98 who said, "Why don't you try Linux?" Here's the CDs, either dual boot with Windows or just make the box a Linux box? You'll like it, it's the most like System V, called Slackware (and I do not remember what release it was).
Loaded Slackware, haven't looked back, don't want to. To my great shame I have Win7 running in VirtualBox just 'cause I get paid to do one or two things that require it. Converted most customers to Slackware Linux but there a a couple of holdouts.
My first experience with open source was Star Office on Solaris before it turned into OpenOffice. Also loaded up BASH (although I am a dedicated KornShell progrmmer). Loaded up some software from Bell Labs (still have it, still use use it). Built OpenOffice on Slackware, built a bunch of stuff on Slackware that I use daily, GMT for one (I do maps and geographic analysis with that). Had to abandon OpenOffice for LibreOffoce when Apache said they couldn't support it any more, had to convert customers that liked OpenOffice to LibreOffice (that went well). Tried GRASS for a while, didn't really care for it.
The thing I like about Open Source is that you can try it, if it works for you that's great, if it doesn't, well, no harm done. I pay for what I use -- having been a developer, I appreciate when somebody likes what I do and contributes. I take that seriously but I don't stop supporting a utility if it's not paid for.
All that history stuff is how I got to being competent and I consider it paid for because of the opportunity afforded me (and others) to learn while doing (and going back and fixing or slicking up the early stuff so it works better).
The Official LQ Poll Series continues. This time we're going to ask two related questions concurrently. In this thread: What are the reasons you use open source software? Click here for the other poll: What are the reasons you use Linux.
--jeremy
Am not a techie and just plain user. I could not see the difference between the two questions so my answer would the the same. My understanding is Open source is Linux and Linux is Open source.
Am not a techie and just plain user. I could not see the difference between the two questions so my answer would the the same. My understanding is Open source is Linux and Linux is Open source.
Linux is open source, but I wouldn't say open source and Linux are equivalent. Open source just means the source code for a program or operating system has been released to the public so anyone can read the code, see what it does, and (if they want to) change it. Though, it is true that many open-source programs are available for Mac, Windows, and Linux - some great examples being Thunderbird, Handbrake, and LibreOffce.
I should also add that Richard Stallman (RMS) - often mentioned in Linux threads since he's partially responsible for it - thinks that open-source and free/libre are different things. I personally think they're the exact same thing because in the end, both movements require the release of source code of software bearing the name of their movement - hence the term "open source". For a program to be called either open source or free/libre, the developer must release the source code. Either way, you still get access to the source code.
The open source movement is just less fanatical than the free/libre software group. Free/libre software guys will absolutely refuse to use "non-free" (proprietary) software if they can possibly avoid it. Open-source guys don't usually mind if some of their software is proprietary (i.e. Skype & MP3 codec).
Last edited by Mr. Macintosh; 03-08-2017 at 11:00 AM.
Reason: Added Blurb about RMS & Philosophical Difference Between Free Software and Open Source software.
I wouldn't put phishing in that list. There's no software solution to phishing. Falling for a phishing scam is a PEBKAC error, not a software failure. Phishing is when someone sends you a phony email and they ask you for your name, address, SSN, etc. Or you get taken to a phony site and they ask you for your SSN, credit card number, etc.
There are a few software solutions that help against phishing, though.
First, when websites are encrypted and properly use certificates, your web browser can warn you when you open a suspicious website, which attempts to look like a legitimate business, but isn't.
Second, spam filters can be quite good at recognizing phishing emails.
Third, against telephone-based phishing, there are apps that tell you when you receive a call if the number is from a known source, or even warn you if it is a number known to be used by phishers.
Sure, none of these replace common sense and basic knowledge, but these solutions exist and are useful.
There are a few software solutions that help against phishing, though.
First, when websites are encrypted and properly use certificates, your web browser can warn you when you open a suspicious website, which attempts to look like a legitimate business, but isn't.
Second, spam filters can be quite good at recognizing phishing emails.
Third, against telephone-based phishing, there are apps that tell you when you receive a call if the number is from a known source, or even warn you if it is a number known to be used by phishers.
Sure, none of these replace common sense and basic knowledge, but these solutions exist and are useful.
Good points. Just a matter of someone actually using those programs. The only one that’s automatic is spam filters - well unless you have your own spam filter (i.e. SpamAssassin). But a lot of folks don’t think to check if the session is encrypted, and they probably won’t think to install one of those apps for warning about phishing calls.
actually I do not really care about that (if it was open source or not). I check the functionality, and will (first try it and) use it if suitable. Occasionally I will also pay for it, if really required.
At first,I started playing with linux because of Windows 10 B.S:spying,having to buy a new copy of windows if you upgrade too many components in your tower.Also,I was concerned about the possibility of Windows messing with my large music file.I already payed for that content once or twice,vinyl,then CD versions.I dont want to buy them again.After I started using linux ,I noticed fairly quickly that I could mess things up to my hearts content,and the worst that would happen would be a possibility of having to do a clean install.No need to justify myself to some 1-800 microsoft person.One thing I found was a big help was using a second drive for storage;makes clean install a breeze.My only complaint is that I distro hopped a lot before I tried Ubuntu.It seems to be the only distro that "just works".Even the official derivatives I tried had some issue or other.Holy cow! Ask a simple question,see what happens!!
Because it is free to use and I am supporting the community behind it of volunteers rather than a megacorporation. Although I run Linux on a MacBook, so... :P
With Linux I know that I can set it up MY way and have the exact desktop that I want, the drivers that I want running, heck if I'm feeling really masochistic I can even compile the kernel itself based on my specifications
I get to choose the flavour that I want, there's a whooooooooooole bunch of distros out there and I tried a lot of them until Arch just 'clicked' for me, although I am giving serious thought to trying Void out
The OS does what I want it to do. Don't want to update right now? Fine. Don't want to reboot after? Cool. Oh wait I've just performed a system upgrade and everything is how I left it? I don't need to reconfigure half my stuff? Awesome
Oh and don't get me started on Windows 10's adverts and systemic spyware
What do I lose by using Linux? Welp I cannot run some of the latest and greatest games. No great loss, there's plenty of other I can run. Some of the software I was used to on Windows doesn't work, I found alternatives and in many cases they actually work better
And the community as a whole too tend to be so much more intelligent than the Windows community but I'm aware that that is subjective
Kinda defeats the purpose of open source. Also, I read that license, but I don't seen anything there about binary-only distributions. I guess it's just implied that source code will usually be provided. I mean, you can't really call it open-source if the source isn't freely available.
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Reasons I use Linux
