I was born in the sixties, an apparent time of great liberation. There were loads of new found and fiercely fought for freedoms. There were the serious and monumental ones like the ending of apartheid in America, and, the free festival, free love (?), and freedom of expression movements. 

Nowadays, you feel like pretty much everything is a retail opportunity. Whether it’s Mother’s Day, Halloween, Junior Prom (ffs), or even our dismal performance in the world cup, there seems to be an abundance of goods for sale; goods not being the best word for the stuff. However, it’s all just geared up to get the money out of your pocket. It’s easy to feel that the spirit of co-operation, and free anything has been methodically eroded over the years. With one true exception, and that is Open Source!

Open Source rocks! I remember Bill Gates being asked the question, “How come you charge so much for your software?”, and part of Bills reply was “you can get all equivalent software for free; it’s a question of choice.” I am paraphrasing of course, but it’s true. The only thing you need is the computer, and you can pretty much get everything else in that true free spirit of things. So, it’s free as in “doesn’t cost anything”, and free as in “you can even intellectually, physically contribute.”

There is an absolute plethora of open source software out there: from server operating systems, to client machine operating systems. CAD, and graphic design, the massively successful Open Office, even Google Wave is Open Source. There’s not enough life left in my keyboard for me to sing the praises of all the Open Source programs, languages, operating systems I love. So, click the link/ Open Source Picture below, to this article in PC-Pro where thy have compiled a top ten.

May the force be with you!

Please don'e hesitate to get in touch if you want to discuss any web applications, cloud solutions, or any application development in general.