BENEFITS OF OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARES 1.

Greater penetration into the market; one of the main advantages of open source software is that it allows businesses to achieve greater penetration of the market. Furthermore, companies who used open source software can also establish an industry standard and gain a competitive edge over others. Wordpress which is an open source CMS and is used as a blog publishing application, powered by PHP(server side scripting language used to create dynamic web pages) and MySQL (worlds most famous open source database), is one of the best example showing how open source softwares attracts market. Currently, it is being used by 12% of the 1000,000 biggest websites. 2. Updated technology, quicker innovation and improved end product; the open source approach encourages innovation, since a number of programmers are working on the same source code and hence their collective effort helps them create a much improved end product. Apache Software Foundations first project became the worlds most popular web server software within the first six months of its creation. Today it powers more than 112 million websites worldwide. 3. Cost effective; open source softwares are available at either no cost or very low cost. This is one of the reasons why open source softwares are preferred over closed source softwares. For example, the installation cost of LINUX is nothing compared to the lots of dollars spend on installing Microsoft operating system. 4. Intelligence advantages; the open source community provides technical knowhow to the programmer and also tests ones skills. For example Ross Gardler of OSS Watch and a member of Apache Software Foundation said that they learned far more through open source than they did through any formal education or software development contract work. Open source community provides respect, reputation and goodwill to the developers. 5. Prevents lock in; the cost of switching proprietary softwares is high whereas in case of open source software the only cost borne is that of

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training and consulting. For example switching from Microsoft OS to Apple Mac OS X will cost an organization less than switching from Ubuntu to Linux. Caters to user requirement; open source caters to specific requirements of the users. All users can modify the code in no time as per their need whereas in the case of proprietary softwares users need to wait till the modified version is in the market. An example is ANDROIDs OS which has come up with feature of voice recognition, virtual keyboard and sharing HQ pictures. Bug fixing; no software is bug free and the bugs are detected only once the software is put to test. In case of closed software the bug can only be rectified by someone from the developer team whereas in open source software anyone from the open source community can rectify the bug there and then by changing the source code. One of the slogans of open source movement was given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow. Reduced risk of discontinuity of product; when commercialized softwares come up with new versions and older versions are not generally supported then organizations are forced to switch to other softwares which is difficult in case of heavy lock in. This risk is reduced in case of open source software. The source code of open source is not owned, hence, anyone can pick and develop it for the interest of a products survival. Conversion of software interface into regional languages; the code of open source softwares is available, hence it is easy to convert the language and this way open source projects can also reach minority groups which use less widely spoken languages. This might not be a good commercial investment but it is culturally important.

LIMITATIONS OF OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARES 1. High chances of unfit software; mostly open source softwares are made as a hobby of many developers, thus there are high chances of bugs and even viruses. Unless there is contractual commitment of quality and fitness, the user must accept the risk of fatal errors, viruses and other various problems. 2. Lack of credibility to license; the typical license agreement does not provide any warranty or indemnity. In fact it contains a broad disclaimer of all warranties that benefits the licensor/contributor. 3. Focus on backend process; there is too much emphasis on quality at the developing stage, thus the developed interfaces are not user friendly.