Is "free" software an alternative?

There has been much recent buzz around the topic of open source software and "free" operating systems such as Linux. The various flavors of Linux and other free operating systems are collections of software freely distributed together under an open source software license. How useful are these programs and what exactly does "open source" mean?

In direct contrast to most commercial software licenses, open source licenses typically allow for unlimited usage and redistribution of the software. When you purchase commercial software it is usually distributed in a compiled form. This finished product is the result of passing a program's source code through a system-specific compiler. The compiled program can no longer be easily modified. A compiled program will also only run on a single type of computer, a Windows executable (i.e. .exe file) will not work on a Macintosh computer. With open source software the modifiable source code is provided and contributions to the software development are encouraged. Most open source licenses stipulate that software derived from the source code must be distributed under the same licensing terms as the original. You can't just modify and sell someone's open source software. If you wish to use the program's source code in your own software development, you must comply with the license terms. There are many varieties of open source licenses. The Open Source Initiative (www.opensource.org) currently lists over 20 distinct licenses.

While Linux is open source, open source is not just Linux. Most open source software is available for several different computing environments often including versions for commercial operating systems such as Microsoft Windows or Sun Solaris.

Open source developers have a passion for coding. This distributed community leverages the Internet and open computing standards to work together in evolving their software projects.

In the networking arena, there are robust Web page, file, print, mail and database servers. As a replacement for the Windows or Macintosh desktop, free operating systems are hampered by the distributed nature of their development. Graphic interface features are inconsistently implemented across applications and can be confusing to use. Projects such as the K Desktop Environment (www.kde.org) and Gnome desktops (www.gnome.org) are attempts to overcome these issues.

For common business network operating system chores, alternatives such as Linux and FreeBSD provide excellent performance at a low cost. It should be noted that in-house knowledge of UNIX like operating systems is a prerequisite for anything but simple configurations. Open source programs running on commercial operating systems can also provide low-cost alternatives for commercial server applications.

Open source may be free to use but there is a definite cost associated with learning to use and configure the software. The good news is that the most established projects have a wealth of freely available documentation.