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July 25, 2007
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Sometimes we mixed up with the term Free and Open Source. Many of us who have inadequate fund to buy commercial applications tend to use the term Open Source to relate to bunch of software being used. In fact it may be better to use the term Free software in this matter. We did not spend any money to use those legally free software, right? Here free software means you don’t have to purchase it in order to use it.
We could say most open source software are free including without limitation, the price and the usage, though it depends on each specific licensing term. Open source software gives special advantage that you may dig into its internal engine by analyzing the source code. Basically it grants you the right to have the binary and source code without have to pay anything (as stated in most free software licenses such as GPL, BSD, and many others).
On the other hand, Free software is not always Open Source. Most likely this relates to the price of the software being used. We could download many free applications from various sites without have to pay any cents. However the author of these free applications may not grant you rights to look into their codes. They want to give away the binary but not the source code.
What about the quality? Certain free and open source software could offer superior features and quality than the commercial ones. We have seen that many free and open source applications have better features. But sometimes money speaks louder as the commercial ones could rule everything. Commercial applications got better coverage to the public. I won’t say that I am going to stick with any free, open source, or even commercial software all the time. In fact I am using all types of software now as long as the license and the price, of course, are suitable to me.
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[...] Original post by http://www.revvi.net/2007/07/25/open-source-is-free-but-free-is-not-always-open-source/ [...]
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