Tech Talk: Freeware, Open Source, Community Development and Community Edition
 | Author:
Victor Sample
Vic Sample: MT43 News Treasurer |
My first job as a programmer was with The Montana Power Company in Butte. I was a “scientific programmer” doing the programming for the gas and electrical engineering departments. At that time IBM had a 98% market share in corporate computing. Software was simple then: the hardware manufacturer provided software with the hardware and a fee was charged; the company wrote its own software or the company purchased software from the relatively few software companies (actually, the company purchased a license to USE the software).
In the 90s software started becoming a lot more complicated. Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) started to become available. The “FREE” in FOSS did not mean “no cost” it meant that the acquirer of the software source received the source code and was free to modify and share the software as well as use it. Open Source quickly became Free as in “no cost”. When Linus Torvald wrote Linux it was made available at no cost, open-source software.
The first major web browser was NetScape and it had to be purchased; but then Microsoft introduced Internet Explorer and delivered it free with Windows. NetScape quickly died – there was no reason to buy a browser when you could get one for free. The Mozilla organization soon started producing what is now the FireFox browser and suddenly there were a lot of free browsers available.
Software development tools were expensive; Microsoft, Borland and a few other companies produced development tools for creating Windows programs – and they were expensive. Then Sun Microsystems released the Java language that allowed programmers to develop programs that could run on multiple platforms (Windows, Linux, Unix systems, etc.) and Java was free. Now there are a plethora of computer languages and development tools and they are free.
But the landscape can be a little tricky: Freeware, Open Source, Community Developed and Community Editions are all software provided for free – but are quite different.
Paint.Net is an example of Freeware. It is a very good software product for creating/modifying graphics or working with images. The developer accepts donations but the software is available to download and use for free.
Libre Office is a great example of Open Source software. It provides the functionality of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint and is free to download and use. The source code is available and can be modified to meet whatever needs the user may have; of course, you do have to be a programmer to modify the software!
Drupal and Word Press are an example of Community Developed software. The software is free to download and any computer-literate user can create a website quickly and easily. The Drupal organization provides the base software that allows the user to build a simple website, but the Drupal Community of users provides “modules” that allow the user to create a full-featured website.
The Community Edition software is a way for software companies to compete with the Free Software while still maintaining a revenue stream from selling software. Microsoft Visual Studio is a great environment for developing Windows programs. It used to be very expensive to purchase. Now Microsoft provides a Community Edition (free, but limited to either a single programmer or a small team), a Professional Edition (at a cost, but with no limitations on the size of the software team) or an Enterprise Edition (at a big cost). Generally, the Community Editions are meant to encourage the user to upgrade to a full-cost edition.
Any time you need a software program to help you do something on your computer look for the free versions of software. I have not purchased any software in over 20 years; everything I need is available for free – although quite often I just write my own.
However, as always, USE CAUTION when downloading anything from the internet. Research the company, research the software and research the site you are downloading software. It is easy to get scammed into downloading malicious software – ALWAYS BE CAUTIOUS!
