It occurs to me that we need to educate folks more on the benefits of open source vs. programming that is kept under wraps. Open Source software promotes a better product in my mind, since everyone could have a hand in making an open source program better, since they have full access to the code that made the program. This effectively gets more people involved with the product and it will make the program better.
I have seen through the years what can happen when you keep programming under wraps...a product is released in an Alpha/Beta form to testers, since they can only look at a portion of the program coding...they do not have the ability to fully test it, case in point. Microsoft Windows Operating systems...I have always been amazed with how many problems have been shipped with release software, to me this is due to the full code of the product not being available to testers to make the product better...and the testers miss some very serious issues with the software.
Then this is passed to us with the release of the software, and then we patch our computers in a seemingly endless loop. Microsoft has made strides in this area by releasing there code to there most trusted partners, but it is not enough and re-affirms my belief that open source software is the better way.
What do you know, I completely lost my train of thought in this article…the best way to get acquainted with open source software is to use it. I found a website that offers the top open source programs, and they run on a Windows machine, so you can try these programs ands get a better understanding of what we talk about on the show. The site is called The Open CD Project, there is a link on the site to either BUY the CD or DOWNLOAD it and Burn it to a CD, and this will give you a real good look at this software. Moreover, I encourage our listeners that are interested in Linux and Open Source software to give it a try.
The link to the Open CD website is as follows:
http://theopencd.sunsite.dk/index.php
