Open-source software advocates the concept of Openness and collaboration. Just like Open Government, that supports highly transparent system available for public scrutiny. Open-source software requires everyone’s participation and software is always available for inspection. Use of Open-source software in public sector enhances the general public participation and collaboration in the field of technology.
Open-source software is affordable. We need to have a clear understanding here that there are open-source software that are free of cost and those are specifically called Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) but not all open-source software are free. Nevertheless, all open-source software are available at much lower price as compared to any proprietary software. Another positive is that Open-source software do not have any hidden charges and update (asking for additional cost) is never mandatory or forced. As a general practice, source code for any proprietary software is not available, when a software is bought, it is assumed that whatever vendor is claiming is true. Open-source software supports access to source code. Using an Open-source software places government agencies in a much better position to validate the vendor’s claims and see whether the software adheres to mandatory standards for security.
Selecting any propriety software puts the customer in a vendor locked situation. The government agencies purchasing proprietary software will be at the mercy of the vendors as they do not have the source code thus cannot make any changes to the software. The dependency on selected vendor is a must, which at times is violation to security procedure in public sector. Open-source software lets the government agencies take the services of a vendor along with the freedom to modify the software themselves.
There is a misconception that Open-source software has quality issues. The fact is that only a few developers have worked on development of a proprietary software whereas an open-source software is developed by a community of developers. All open-source software ensures testing and code review which can be performed by the government agencies themselves to ascertain the quality even before they select the software for their requirement. Interestingly the developers of the open-source software are also the potential users of the same software, enhancing the user-friendly attribute.
Support, training and documentation is provided by specific vendor in case of a proprietary software. At times the support is provided for a declared period, after which an upgrade would enable the support for the active versions only. Whereas in case of Open-source technology, any active member of community can provide the support on any version; old or latest. Take the example of Linux; it has a solid online community with outstanding documentation, forums, mailing lists, newsgroups and many other channels to help anyone. Unlike proprietary vendors, most open-source communities do not charge any money for help and support.
The ultimate goal of open-source software and society under a democratic system is the same; ensuring more collaboration and creating a friendly community.
Gary's feedback:
- This page is almost all about the benefits of Open Source software and has almost no information about public sector procurement, so I would suggest making a fresh start.
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