Other Advantages of Open Source

Another good thing and really the key advantage of Open Source is not cost savings.
Reduced dependence on software vendors appears more important than low cost

Computer Economics recently conducted a survey of visitors to its website regarding the perceived advantages in the use of open source software. Although not a scientific sample, the results are nevertheless startling.

As nearly everyone knows, open source software is a low cost alternative to proprietary software. For example, the open source Linux operating system is commonly seen as a low cost alternative to Microsoft’s Server 2003 operating system, or Sun’s version of Unix. The popularity of open source is seen in the fact that today the largest market share for web servers is held by the open source Apache system.

One might think, therefore, that the key advantage of open source software is its low cost of ownership. But visitors to our website didn’t think so.

Via Frank Scavo