The owners of personal computers have marveled at all of the things these machines, these 'little boxes with monitor and mouse attached' can do. A computer can only do the amazing things that it does because of the software stored on its hard drive. The software or programs contain hundreds, even thousands of lines of code, which tells the computer what to do. Typically, if you purchase a computer at a retail location, it comes with certain software pre-installed. Often this includes the operating system, some games and word processing software. Manufacturers have license agreements with certain software manufactures and this often dictates what kinds of software you find on a newly purchased machine.
However, software publishers, especially commercial or enterprise publishers, have a keen interest in protecting their software property rights. This falls under an area of copyright law known as "Intellectual Property", and while a full discussion of intellectual property law is beyond the scope of this article, a few points are relevant here. Intellectual property law protects the property rights in creative and inventive endeavors and gives creators and inventors certain exclusive economic rights, generally for a limited time, to deal with their creative works or inventions. This provision is right and fair. However, commercial software owners have typically sought to extend their rights beyond what many consider reasonable.
The result is that many smart computer users have sought alternatives to the commercial software publisher and they have found it with software publishers who embrace the GNU or General Public License (GPL). Under a GPL the end-user is given significant permission, such as permission to redistribute, reverse engineer, or otherwise modify the software. The GPL is a form of open source license. Open source programs are programs that make the source code is available to the general public for use and/or modification from its original design free of charge.
Open source programs with a GPL license provide exciting new opportunities for you and I because it means the computer user is no longer forced to buy commercial or enterprise software, otherwise known as retail or "off the shelf" software in order for their computer to do those amazing things they have come to expect. Many people have taken their computers; machines bought from major retail outlets, and completely erased the hard drive. Why? They see the collective cooperation and efforts to maintain and modify computer program code collectively as not only freeing, but as more responsive to the users of these programs.
Making the underlying source code freely available means that when problems in a program are discovered, the users can modify it, fix it and potentially make it better in some respects than the original program. While the copyright with open source software still remains with the original publisher, the fact that any user can use and modify the original program provides significant advantages over proprietary retail software. One of the most significant advantages has already been mentioned.
Software licenses can generally be fit into one of two distinct categories: proprietary licenses and open source licenses. The main distinction of proprietary software licenses is that the software publisher grants a license to use one or more copies of software, but that ownership of those copies remains with the software publisher. One example of such a proprietary software license is the license for Microsoft Windows. As is usually the case with proprietary software licenses, this license contains an extensive list of activities that are restricted, such as: reverse engineering, simultaneous use of the software by multiple users, and publication of benchmarks or performance tests. However with an open source license ownership of a particular copy of the software does not remain with the software publisher. Instead, ownership of the copy is transferred to the end-user. As a result, the end-user is, by default, afforded all rights granted by copyright law to the copy. In addition to all the additional rights granted open source software users, this software is available free of charge for anyone to download, if you know where to look.
People have taken their computers, erased them and instead installed an entire collection of open source alternatives beginning with the operating system. An excellent open source operating system available free for anyone to download from the Internet is Linux. There are different variations of Linux available, but one of the most popular is Ubuntu because it is user friendly, easy to install and looks surprisingly similar in its graphical user interface to what they are already familiar with.
However, if you want to leave your computer's operating system alone and install open source software for free, that is a hassle free and fiscally responsible way to go. Many people don't realize that for every commercially available retail piece of software available, there is a free, open source program that you can download for free that performs as well or better than its retail competitor. Often, these programs outperform the retail competition
Companies like Source Forge provide wonderful programs freely available for anyone to download. Here are some examples of programs that you can find online. Want a free anti-virus; try Win Clam or AVG Free. Maybe you want a free Office Suite comparable and compatible with Microsoft Office. It is available in Open Office from Sun Microsystems. Perhaps you are a photographer and you want an alternative to Photoshop. Do a Google search for "Gimpshop" if that is the case. These are just a few examples of the hundreds of free high quality programs available for immediate download and use on the Internet.
It is important to know where to look for these programs. At the end of this article there are links to valuable resources in this respect. One simple trick you can use is to put the words "open source" plus the resource type you are looking for in a Google search. For example, the search term "open Source antivirus" will bring list free antivirus programs. It is true that you need to know how to properly search to separate the good from the not so good, but with a little knowledge and patience, you will uncover some gems. Soon you will wonder why you ever paid retail for proprietarily licensed programs. There is nothing wrong with the commercial software available at your local "big box" store or neighbourhood computer retailer, but with so many advantages, variety, and quality found in so many free general public licensed programs, why not give them a try?
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