Imagine A World

"Imagine a world where computer software is:

• available at little or no cost
• stable, i.e. doesn't cause your computer to crash
• allowed to be copied and shared with friends and colleagues
• not susceptible to common viruses

This world exists and actually has for a long time! Open source software (OSS) offers all the above, and more. OSS is released under a license that allows users to copy (and modify) and freely distribute the software to others. Proprietary software vendors have labelled this behaviour piracy and touted it as immoral and in many cases illegal, but in the open source community this behaviour is encouraged and has lead to the creation of high quality, robust and secure software.

Open source software provides alternatives for almost all software available in the proprietary world, including:

• Office productivity suites: word processors, spreadsheets, presentation applications
• Operating systems
• Web browsers
• Email clients
• A range of graphical desktops
• Graphics manipulation programs and multimedia tools
• Games
• Web, mail, database servers
• A whole lot more..."

Excerpted from the Go OpenSource Campaignwebsite