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Can Open Source apps compete with commercial ones?

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mouser:
The other thing i am learning with regard to using open source programs tools is the hard truth about the difference between theory and practice.

As a programmer, my first instinct when choosing between an open source tool and a closed-source/commercial tool, is to say: Well i should prefer the open source tool, because theoretically if there is a bug or something i need to add, I can code it myself - yay!

In practice however, and this is the thing i am really starting to feel strongly about and really starting to understand the import of, I just don't have the time or energy to learn someone else's code just so i can fix something or add a small feature.

In practice, i'd be much happier being part of a user base that can provide enough financial support to the project so that the developers can spend their time working on and providing support for the project.  In terms of cost-benefit analysis, my time is much better spent coding on my own projects and supporting these developers with a little money.

TomColvin:
There is an interesting unfolding series about a real user who turned to open source programs when he became self-employed with no more software provided by his company.  Jeremy Osborne has posted the first of his series in which he will introduce us to the open source software he now uses for work and entertainment.  He is providing in-depth analysis of each program in use -- with screenshots and video.

Check it out at:  www.jeremyosborne.com

Tom

dantheman:
Very subjective - thunderbird is one of the last tools I would want to use to handle my email...   :D
-iphigenie (October 23, 2007, 08:51 AM)
--- End quote ---

I found Outlook to be like most other MSN products: à la bloated, slow to start up and close and very hard to backup/restore.

Thunderbird is open to extensions and themes that make it fun.

Lashiec:
Objectively speaking, I'd say no. Maybe if you included freeware in the mix, this could be the case, but OSS alone sometimes fall short in front of shareware or commercial apps. Wether people screams that this or that app is far better than the evil closed source counterpart, if you compare both with a cold mind, almost all times the payware software advantages pay by themselves.

Of course, there are exceptions. Firefox is the best example. Of course, it benefits from the fact that most other browsers are free to use, and the only payware worth mentioning, OmniWeb and NetCaptor, have it share of problems.

OmniWeb is limited to Mac OS X, and was essentially pushed back to obscurity by the Gecko-based browsers (Camino and Firefox) and Safari, both options doing more than what people needs, even if OmniWeb packs in more features (for the record, Safari at first was going to be based in the OmniWeb engine, as Steve Jobs made a buyout offer to the company developing it, but the guys said 'no', and Apple turned to KHTML).

NetCaptor, in the other hand, apart from being limited to Windows, it's an IE shell, and a payware one, so despite making inroads years ago, I'd say it's no longer in the playfield.

So, apart from the points mentioned by mouser, Firefox benefits from a propitious software ecosystem. And you don't have too many other open source apps so capable of beating commercial ones. Of course, AutoHotkey and AutoIt are the best in their field, but AFAIK there are no other options (open source, shareware, donationware, or whatever other license you can come up with). Old systems emulators (VMs aside) is ruled by open source apps, and the scene mostly stays away and heavily criticize commercial ones (for obvious reasons). Amarok, although it has been accused of bloatware, it's quite more lean than those heavy commercial jukeboxes (J River and the like) and packs a good deal of features to compete with them. Another field with quite good OSS is development, with the likes of Eclipse, CodeBlocks and all other IDEs and compilers like GCC. Then multiprotocol IM apps, with Miranda, Kopete and Pidgin (maybe...).

The rest can give a good fight to commercial software, but I wouldn't say they're "better" by definition, and they fall in the personal choice camp.

So there you have it, short and to the point ;D

Renegade:
...
In practice however, and this is the thing i am really starting to feel strongly about and really starting to understand the import of, I just don't have the time or energy to learn someone else's code just so i can fix something or add a small feature.

In practice, i'd be much happier being part of a user base that can provide enough financial support to the project so that the developers can spend their time working on and providing support for the project.  In terms of cost-benefit analysis, my time is much better spent coding on my own projects and supporting these developers with a little money.
-mouser (October 23, 2007, 09:49 AM)
--- End quote ---

Amen!

For server/web software, I have a strong preference for open source (commercial or otherwise) because it guarantees me a degree of insurance in case I really *need* to get in and start coding. However, this is rare, and really only an insurance policy for me. Web server software often needs to work in cooperation with other stuff - that's my reasoning there. And one of the major reasons I really like DotNetNuke.

For desktop apps - I really could care less if it's open source or not - as long as it does what I need.

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