January 17th, 2008 Freeware and Open Source

I’m a huge fan of freeware for my computer, even bigger fan of open source programs for said computer and websites.

What’s the difference between open source and freeware? Lots.

A program or script that’s considered freeware would typically be done by a person, group of people or a company who is closed off to the general public. And by closed off, I’m talking about code-wise. They don’t let anyone touch the code or see the code, definitely not edit the code.

An open source program / script is just that. Open source. The code is freely available. Free for anyone to grab and edit, redistribute, no restrictions on what they can do. Most open source software or scripts I’ve seen are under the GPL, General Public License which is to allow anyone to do the above mentioned.

When it comes to programs for my computer, I don’t mind if it’s freeware or open source. Either or would be wonderful for me, as long as I like the program and if I don’t have to pay for it. Because I’m flat broke most if not all the time.

My websites, though. I really prefer open source. Why?

I like the idea of people sharing code and communities working on a project to call their baby. It’s just an awesome feeling. Plus I’m somewhat paranoid. I like having open source scripts on my websites because I can do whatever I like with it design-wise, don’t have to worry about the license.

I’m a PHP / MySQL noob of the infinite degree so all I really can do is edit templates and themes for things. So the idea that I don’t have to keep a “Managed by (insert script)” text or an ugly button anywhere makes me full of gleeeeeeee.

On my computer I don’t have much open source software as I used to mainly because I’ve reinstalled Vista almost a month ago.

• Cabos - Very lightweight downloading program. Available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux
• Abiword - A suite of word processing progams similar to Microsoft Office. Available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux
• Pidgin - Instant Messaging program, I use this off and on with the freeware program Trillian. Available for Windows and Linux.

As for website scripts I’ve used WordPress (you’re looking at it) and NucleusCMS. For web forums, I’ve used phpBB (I won’t link to it simply because I have beef with the script) and MyBB (very awesome, ftw).

What are your thoughts on freeware and open source? Does it make any difference to you, as long as it’s free? And finally, do you guys have any open source stuff on your computers?

Feel free to share what freeware and open source things you use for your computer or websites, I’d love to see what you use!

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 8:20 pm and is filed under Operating Systems, Webbie. This entry has been tagged as freeware, linux, open source, os x, windows. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Peach to “Freeware and Open Source”

1. Mitchell Says:
   January 17th, 2008 at 10:10 pm

   I love both open-source and freeware. Mostly because they’re free.

   I prefer open-source, simply because it’s more flexible. When you have people working on a code from all over, you get things like plugins from people that wanted the script to be able to do something.

   Something you might not even have thought of. So open-source is better in that aspect.

   I don’t use any open-source programs for my computer, for no particular reason. Mostly because I haven’t found any. But all the programs are freeware ;D

   Except for Photoshop. But whatever, that’s different.

   Website-wise, wordpress is the way to go. Add some plugins, and you’re good to go :D