Open source used to be term only very technical people understood. Now it is becoming more mainstream. I’m working on a real estate website right now and their existing website is all custom, something I wouldn’t do. Everything about it is custom proprietary software. One advantage of this is you can custom tailor it for exactly what you want it work like. However, a big disadvantage of it is you are at the mercy of developer. If you want to add new functionality to your website you have to go to the same developer. Hence, the web applications are more expensive. I would have started them with a membership website based on open source software.
Open source is much different. The source code for the program is available. Now it isn’t necessarily free. That depends on the license. Many are familiar with WordPress (which is a fantastic content management system that allows you to add your own content to your own website). The software is free and you get the source code so you can modify it if you need to. Some open source software have licenses that cost money, but most are free. Proprietary software has to be very very good in order to keep market share or use very aggressive licensing like Microsoft has done. And open source software has a huge advantage in that a lot more people can work together on it than a commercial company could ever afford. This leads to fixes being made available immediately. I can’t remember the number of times that a commercial application tooks months and sometimes years for a bug to be fixed. Not with open source, I’ve seen bug fixes the same day that it error was found.
The most popular web server software Apache that runs a majority of websites is open source and free. Microsoft Internet Information Services is not free and has frequent questions about security problems. If Apache has a security issue it is fixed and released immediately.
In some cases you shouldn’t use proprietary software at all. For instance, encryption. If you can’t confirm that the encryption software doesn’t have any backdoor passwords built into it then you have no idea if it is really secure. Only use open source encryption software. I highly recommend TrueCrypt. It’s free, open source and works on Windows, Mac and Linux.
And lately hosted applications have been getting very popular and provide a great revenue model for companies. A hosted application, also known as Internet-based application, web-based application, online application and Application Service Providers (ASPs) are software applications where the software resides on servers that are accessed through the Internet instead of the more traditional software that is installed on either a local server or on individual PCs. For instance, I use Freshbooks to do my companies invoicing. I tried out open source solutions where I would have to host it on my own website and the functionality and especially the user interface of many options were just very very poor. I knew my client wouldn’t have a clue how to use it and it would just create a big headache for me answering all their questions or worse losing the client because of a horrible system. So when I found Freshbooks I was thrilled. They had a free plan for a certain number of clients. I started with that and quick upgraded to a paid plan when I got more clients. By then it was more than paying for itself. Freshbooks makes it free for small companies to start and they make money on clients by providing the invoicing as a service. Hosted applications work if information or documents need to be shared and there isn’t an open source solution. Keep in mind the benefits of hosted applications. Reduced costs as your technical person doesn’t have to update the software and low or no maintenance. And the access is key. If you have workers and clients all over the place then a hosted application is very helpful as everyone can access it easily from their favorite web browser.
So, what software should you pick when you need a solution filled? I try to go open source as much as possible, but only if the community behind the software is active. Sometime the open source option is just too immature to be viable. If there is a commerical proprietary version or hosted version I get that instead. It’s on a case by case basis and I try them all out and then go with what I believe is best. For me invoicing is very important so I went with Freshbooks (hosted). WordPress (OpenSource) has the best community and a ton of fantastic plugins. Here are some of my favorite open source applications.
- TrueCrypt – the best and I believe only option for disk encryption
- OpenOffice – free Office suite of programs that competes against Microsoft Office
- Firefox – the best web browser because of the sheer amount of plugin support.
And some of my favorite hosted applications:
- Google Applications – with Gmail, Documents, and Google Reader this is my most used hosted applications
- HighRise – CRM Customer Relationship Management that tracks my clients and who we need to follow up with, etc.
- Aweber – the best autoresponder out there. I use to use commerical software on my own servers but Aweber is so much better.
- TimeBridge - setting appointments with people around the world. Big time savers. Just added webinar feature.
Did you enjoy this article? Please subscribe to AbundanceUnlimited.com to receive all the FREE updates!
