The Other Side - 3/23/2014

So, the other side of open-source. The first problem is fragmentation. There are currently several hundred (thousand?) distributions of Linux, all ultimately linked back to Linus Torvalds' original code, but developed along different lines, with different emphases and design decisions. Getting a particular piece of software to work on one of them can result in some minor or major difficulties.

The second comes into play right there. There are no official support centers for any but the largest of the Linux distros (Red Hat, Debian, etc...). Trying to find an answer to a question about how a particular Firefox add-in works on Crunch! (crunchbang), for instance, can involve lengthy searches amongst the various communities, forums and mailing lists for advice. While these communities are robust, and will often have the answers you need, sometimes they won't.

The third weakness of open-source is part and parcel with its greatest strength. If you want a particular modification made or tool added to an open-source product, you can do it yourself. Or find someone to do so. But if that kind of coding isn't your specialty, or if you can't find someone interested in writing it for you, you're pretty much out of luck. On the other hand, Microsoft isn't going to add a feature for you either, so this may not be much of a drawback.

In the end, I like open-source products. The ones I have used have been stable, feature-rich and generally less of a hassle than the pay-for-license versions. In some cases, there are features that are significantly better-implemented in the open-source product than in the original. GIMP, for instance, seems to handle transparency much better than Photoshop (although that may be my inexperience with Photoshop, I admit).

So the next time you're looking for a way to do something on your computer, check out www.osalt.com and see if there might be a way you can do so without dropping a bundle on major software.

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