Subject Name: Introduction to Computing

1. COMSATS Institute of Information Technology Subject Name: Introduction to Computing Assignment : Advantages And Disadvantages Of Open Source Software Submitted by: Raja Kamran Maroof Khan (FA10-BBA-135) Asim Sadiq (FA10-BBA-142) Muhammad Naqi (FA10-BBA-067) Submitted to: Madam Ayesha Qureshi Date: 31-Oct-2010

2. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARES ADVANTAGES OF OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARES Take control of your software :Open source software gives you the power to control your software's code. You have the right to modify the code to suit your requirements and control the budgets that you want to spend towards it. Unlike proprietary software, where the vendor controls your code, upgrades and budgets -- with open source software, you control the upgrade process and can choose to decide which bugs to fix and when. Escape Vendor Lock in : Disappointment and dissatisfaction with a vendor's support and service is a reality for all IT managers. Inability to customize software to meet your requirements or support your needs, further increases the frustration. Open source gives you the freedom to choose your preferred vendor giving you the flexibility. Software code that sustains a critical eye :The people who originally write the software always know that anyone can see in full detail how it works or what solutions have been chosen. They will therefore naturally do as good a job as possible in order that they can be as proud as possible of the product and avoid criticism as much as possible. It is perhaps simplest to conceal the source code and thereby obtain a little more freedom as long as the end product is ok. However by producing in accordance with the “Open Source code ” concept, one makes a clear statement that ”my method withstands the light of day and a critical eye”

3. High quality software :Open source software is mostly high-quality software. When you use the open source software, the source code is available. Most open source software are well-designed. Open source software can also be efficiently used in coding. These reasons make open source software an ideal choice for organizations. • Integrated management : By using open source software, you can benefit from integrated management. Open source software uses technologies, such as, common information model (CIM) and web based enterprise management (WBEM). These high-end technologies enable you to integrate and combine server, application, service and workstation management. This integration would result in efficient administration. • Simple license management : When you use open source software, you would no longer need to worry about licenses. Open source software enables you to install it several times and also use it from any location. You will be free from monitoring, tracking or counting license compliance. • Survey offered respondents a choice of five advantages for open source: • Lower total cost of ownership. • Reduced dependence on software vendors. • Easier to customize. • Higher level of security. • Do not see a significant advantage. • The results of the survey are shown in the chart on the next page:

5. DISADVANTAGES OF OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE Most open source software applications are not reliable : Although big multinational companies like IBM and Sun Microsystems are backing theopen source software movement there are no great financial stakes involved and the motivation mostly originates from a prevalent anti-Microsoft feeling.  So there is no clear cut discipline in this field and everything is emotion driven. Most of the developers and promoters of free source software believe in an obscure, idealistic world where intellectual property rights do not exist and software companies do not sell commercial software.  Hence most of the applications are not reliable and you cannot run critical business operations on them. No support exists for open source software : Once you decide to use open source software you are on your own.  Agreed, that lots of help is available on the Internet and there are many self-motivated forums that can help you install and run open source software, there is no qualified support available.  You have to figure out on your own how to install and use applications without sabotaging your data and hardware. For instance, every second kid in the neighborhood exhorts you to ditch Windows and switch to Linux; many have lost their years of data trying to make the shift.  No help documents and manuals are made available since the software is being changed every second week. No guarantee of updates : Since you are not paying for the open source software nobody is bound to give you regular updates.  You can get stuck with the same old version for years without ever getting an update.I wouldn’t like to paint the entire open source movement with a black color.  Of course commercial software is sometimes too expensive and people who don’t have big budgets cannot afford them.  Some buggy software is better than no software.  For instance, OpenOffice.org with all its quirks is far better than Microsoft Office for those who cannot afford Microsoft Office and hence wouldn’t have such a product if it were not for the OpenOffice.org providers.  Similarly there are many poor countries where low cost open source software can be used without incurring huge costs.  But open source software shouldn’t be promoted as a commercial alternative.

6. There is no guarantee that development will happen :It is not possible to know if a project will ever reach a usable stage, and even if it reaches it, it may die later if there is not enough interest. Of course, this is also a problem with proprietary software, but it is more evident in the case of open source. Especially when a project is started without strong backing from one or more companies, there is a significant initial gap, when the source base is still immature and the development base is still being built. If it is not possible to get funding or enough programmers cooperating at this stage, the project just ``dies'', or perhaps slowly fades out. Usually, when it reaches a self-sustaining level, the user and development base is such that it can proceed by itself, without other external incentives. This issue will be revisited later on, when business models are discussed in section. There may be significant problems connected to intellectual property:This point is especially important, now that some countries are accepting software and algorithm patents. It is very difficult to know if some particular method to solve a software problem is patented, and so the community can be considered guilty of intellectual property infringement. Some open source packages are already addressing this issue with switches or patches that enable or disable patented code fragments according to the country where the code is used. In other cases, developers consider source code not as an executable device, but a mere description of how a device (the computer) executes, and therefore uphold the idea that source code is not by itself (in absence of an executable program) covered by patent law even in countries where software patents are accepted. However, this idea has still to be tested in courts, and many people do not believe in its viability. In any case, it still leaves problems for the users, who need the executable programs. It is sometimes difficult to know that a project exist, and its current status :There is not much advertising for open source software, especially for those projects not directly backed by a company willing to invest resources in marketing campaigns. However, several `aggregation points' for open source software do exist, although in many cases they are usable only by experts, and not by the general public. They are also in many cases very specific to some software category, such as scientific software or database systems. There are only a few `clearing houses' for open source software and projects, and in many cases they are not really up to date. However, some people see this fact as a market opportunity, and several companies with experience in Internet based information services are approaching open source software with added value services which maintain information useful for people or companies trying to locate or evaluate open source software of some given characteristics.