Opinions required

[m15hun]

Hi Folks,

I'm currently undertaking some research on the open source movement for a piece of work I'm putting together and was wondering whether some of you might indulge me with your opinions, as I'd like to reflect the community fairly and accurately in my piece.

Firstly, what are your favourite pieces of open source software/projects and why?

What is your primary motivation for the choices you make? Is freedom as important to you as efficiency?

What do you feel the community is doing right compared to competing corporations?

I'd also be happy to hear of any other opinions you have on the subject.

I don't expect vast essays, I know your time is valuable so a few lines would be great.

Thanks a million in anticipation.

:)

[blueshiftoverwatch]

Firstly, what are your favourite pieces of open source software/projects and why?
I can't say that theirs any one specific project. Linux is a collections of thousands of different projects that must work together to produce a working OS.

What is your primary motivation for the choices you make? Is freedom as important to you as efficiency?
Both are important, but it's a sliding scale. If an open source app is only slightly worse than a proprietary app I'll go with the open source. But if the open source app is significently worse I'll go with the better proprietary app. This is why I have the proprietary Nvidia drivers installed on my computer.

What do you feel the community is doing right compared to competing corporations?
Open source has both individual people, groups/communities, and corporatations competeing that both compete and cooperate with both each other and proprietary applications. I don't necessarily see for profit businesses being at odds with the lone programmer coding away in his basement.

[Tibuda]

Firstly, what are your favourite pieces of open source software/projects and why?
Openbox, Firefox, Vim, R, Ruby on Rails


What is your primary motivation for the choices you make? Is freedom as important to you as efficiency?
Efficiency for sure, freedom is secundary for me.


What do you feel the community is doing right compared to competing corporations?
Yep, but remember corporations also contribute to open source projects.

[tgalati4]

I like the fact that open source can give old equipment (abandonware) new life. The cycle of NEW OS needs lots of RAM and CPU means YOU need a NEW computer--is tiresome and not needed.

Open source also seems to foster international development in a way not seen before.

[malspa]

Freedom, and being able to use an operating system and applications that I don't have to pay an arm and a leg for, are the things I like most about open source and Linux. Also, I like the idea of the open source community, people coming together from all over the world, putting stuff out there that everyone can use.

[m15hun]

I can't thank you enough for the input so far folks. It's much appreciated!

[tgalati4]

An example: Vagalume is a project written by a Brazilian for the nokia n800 portable tablet. It plays music from Last.fm. It has been ported to Debian and is now in the the repositories.

So you have international development and cross-platform development--all to listen to a US-based music service.

[m15hun]

:) Thanks, that looks like an interesting project.

[nothingspecial]

Have a look at this (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1380811)

[ericmc783]

Firstly, what are your favourite pieces of open source software/projects and why?

GNOME Desktop Environment, Firefox, Google Chrome/Chromium, OpenOffice. They are all efficient and work well.



What is your primary motivation for the choices you make? Is freedom as important to you as efficiency?

Both are important to me, and I get both when using Open Source software. The is ALMOST NOTHING that I can do on a system running Microsoft Windows, that I can't do on a system running a Linux-based OS. Same situation when comparing IE to FF, MS Office to OOO, etc.



What do you feel the community is doing right compared to competing corporations?



We offer better support, and faster bug fixes, when something goes wrong. Many Open Source projects are community based, and the people working on programming/designing the projects are doing it because they are interested in it, not because some company is paying for it. Programmers find this very liberating, and even if the original programmer won't fix a problem, when the project is open source, someone else who DOES have programming knowledge is welcome to jump in and help fix it.






I'd also be happy to hear of any other opinions you have on the subject.


Open Source is a win for everybody. People who need the software can get it free, programmers can work on what they want to, other people can jump in on a project and help improve it, and there are other ways that programmers/developers can make money realted to the software, this includes, but is not limited to, charging for "Official Support".

The true essence of open source is explained very well, and briefly in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QOoU1MDoVA

A guy by the name of Eric Raymond, wrote an essay called "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", in which he compared the two main styles of software development (open and closed source). You may wish you use the essay as a reference in your piece.

[Uncle Spellbinder]

Have a look at this (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1380811)
A perfect example of open source at work in the development stages. A music player (with incredible promise, by the way) being developed, in part, with help from users of this forum. Moving along quite nicely, I might add.

[cchhrriiss121212]

The main reason for me trying Linux was for music production. The amount of open source software that is of high quality continues to impress me. The jack sound server is fantastic, and allows me to record things in a way that is simple and effective. For me to use comparable programs on Windows would have cost me hundreds of pounds.

[Nerd King]

Firstly, what are your favourite pieces of open source software/projects and why?

Apache + PHP + MySQL - this combination has earned me a lot of money over the years and also shown itself to be stable, cheap and secure. While my ASP-using colleagues got hacked left, right and centre my stuff stayed working, unhacked.
Firefox - The browser that redefined the market.
Linux (obviously) - My workflow is more efficient with Linux than Windows. I use it for technological, not political, reasons.
Scribus - Quite simply awesome. I can make very cool stuff very quickly and easily with great precision using this tool. It's streets ahead of MS Publisher but just as easy to use.
Kino - A great little easy-to-use editor (and there's others like OpenShot and Pitivi coming along nicely)



What is your primary motivation for the choices you make? Is freedom as important to you as efficiency?

I use what gets the work done best. I game on Windows. I make music on Windows. I edit video on Linux, and use Linux to develop, surf the net, listen to music, watch movies, play wine-compatible games, chat, DTP, etc. Linux helps me work better (especially with my lovely customised desktop).



What do you feel the community is doing right compared to competing corporations?

The availability of a large quantity of high-quality applications at minimal price is a big draw. However it's the customisability of the thing that's awesome. Open-source software can be made to do exactly what I want, how I want it. That's awesome when building my own PC but also awesome when building large projects for customers.



I'd also be happy to hear of any other opinions you have on the subject.

Open-source is essential to my daily life. It gives us so much and asks for so little. I find that wonderful. I also consider the portability of open-source to be a major plus. Consider that open-source liberates us from the x86 architecture and allows innovation in processor design. That's a very big deal and is necessary for the next big leap forward in technology.

[malspa]

Firstly, what are your favourite pieces of open source software/projects and why?

- Firefox, because it's my favorite web browser and because it was the first open source app I ever knew about.

- OpenOffice.org -- I started using it back when I was still a Windows user. It freed me up from having to spend money on Microsoft Office.

- Linux. Doesn't matter which distro. Learning to use Linux was the best computer-related thing I ever did for myself.

[crlang13]

Hey,

I'm new to ubuntu and the whole open source thing, but I'll offer my opinions.

Favourite piece of software?
- Firefox is probably the one I use the most.
- I only use my computer for school work and the internet. I think the existence of Open Office shows that you don't have to fork out money for a fully functional office program.

Motivation?
- Price was a big motivator. The open source attitude also appealed to me. I don't like the fact that some pieces of software and operating systems think they can tell you what you can do with their software.
- For example, something like an iPhone has its apps that are supposed to make it more functional, but Apple only allows users to use the applications it deems appropriate (unless you jailbreak the phone, voiding the warranty). Whereas with an open source program, if you have the skills, you can make the software run however you like. What's nice about the community is that if you're a beginner, there's plenty of stuff out there that will give you the functionality that you want.

Community?
-See above regarding allowing users to use software how they see fit, rather than only being able to use software how a company wants you to.


On a side note, I'm a newbie to Ubuntu, but consider myself a slightly above average computer user. Most open source software I've used is just as easy to use as anything Apple or Microsoft would ever create. To get my computer to do regular, day to day things, it just works. I think you'll hear alot of Windows or Mac users say the same thing though. What appeals to me though is that if I want my computer to have a little bit more functionality than I would get on a Windows or Mac, most of the time it's very easy to implement, even for someone who only know the basics. Sometimes though, it's a little bit trickier, but I still get more functionality that I would get otherwise. In this way though, I learn, and it gets easier and easier. And then I have a machine that does EXACTLY what I want it to do, not sort of what I want it to do.

[gsmanners]

1) I think gcc is the best open source project. It provides the foundation for everything else, and it is quite simply the best compiler I've ever seen.

2) My primary motivation is real results. I don't have time to waste, and I don't want applications killing me with kindness (i.e. patronizing me).

3) The "community" is doing a good job of avoiding too much management. What corporations do wrong, specifically Microsoft, is they have way too many planning sessions and meetings where nothing ever gets done. The community usually chips away on problems one bit at a time until the problem is solved.

I think overall what's great about open source projects is that they crush philosophies that don't work, and what you see primarily is how the Unix philosophy nearly always prevails over inferior ones.

[m15hun]

As an advocate of open source and Linux in particular I'm happy to have the opportunity to put across the message in the press (I'll link once the article is published) and I'm really looking forward to showing people that it needn't be a daunting premise moving away from Windows or OSX.

Please, continue to opine and inform. I'm stoked with your responses and am really grateful for your time.

[m15hun]

http://www.itpro.co.uk/620266/top-10-areas-where-open-source-leads-the-way

Thanks a lot for your input folks, I hope I've done a good job of pointing out the good points of open source.

Please feel free to post your views on the story.