Free and Open Source Software (FOSS)

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Many of us aren’t actually familiar with the term “FOSS” (also known as FLOSS, indicating Free Libre Open Source Software refers to the same thing), but are using some of them without actually knowing it .What is FOSS? As it is mentioned in the title, FOSS is the abbreviation for Free and Open Source Software.

The Open part refers to its free license which grants anyone the rights to use as you wish or copy or distribute or modify the program the software without any costs. Then, what does the term Open Source mean? In FOSS, its source code is available to anyone, enabling the modification of it .And yes, anyone can modify the code and customize it to their wish or update it for their purpose. So in short, you have full access to a software and you can modify it as per your desire and redistribute your modified version— ALL FOR FREE most of the time.

                             Even though its features look like they are from heaven, not many people are aware of FOSS and instead they go for Proprietary, closed sourced software (E.g.: Microsoft Windows, Adobe Suite, Autodesk Maya etc.), for which one should have to pay and buy it at some point.

Why FOSS?

FOSS have contributors all around the world and they are frequently modified and upgraded via Internet (with the use of some web forums, newsgroups etc.). Since, most of the FOSS are free, the evolved & upgraded versions become available free too.


Advantages of FOSS


1)    Access to the source code and the right to modify it.
2)    Frequently upgraded
3)    Even you can become a contributor by helping in upgrading the source code
4)    The freedom to use the FOSS in any way we want to
5)    A supportive community consisting of people all around the world
6)    Increased security
7)    More reliable
8)    Low cost( or more like NO cost)
9)    Encourages innovation

Disadvantages of FOSS


1)    Malicious users can create bugs in FOSS
a.   Since the source code is available to ANYONE, any person with malicious intentions can make use of this fact to create bugs or loopholes in the software to suit their evil intentions.
2)    License terms are not really standard as the closed source software
3)    No warranties regarding the performance—but usually these softwares work just fine.
4)    Some FOSS may not be user-friendly as the closed source ones.
Generally, FOSS aims to induce a developer’s mind to create something new­ and in that intention it sometimes fails to create a user-friendly interface which might hinder the users at the beginning.

Generally, FOSS aims to induce a developer’s mind to create something new­ and in that intention it sometimes fails to create a user-friendly interface which might hinder the users at the beginning.

Can you use FOSS in your day-to-day life?

Most probably you already do have FOSS in your PC. For example,
1.     Mozilla Firefox (Web browser)
2.     VLC Media Player
3.     Libre Office
4.     Blender 3D(Computer graphics software)
5.     BitDefender Antivirus
6.     VirtualBox(Virtual machine)
7.     BitTorrent(Torrent downloader)
8.     GIMP(Graphics Editor)
9.     Fedora(Operating system)
10. Ubuntu(Operating System)
11. Apache
12.Audacity(Audio Editor)
13. Notepad++(Source code editor)

You can download these often used— more efficient softwares from links down below.

1)    Mozilla Firefox

Can be used instead of Internet explorer or Google Chrome.
You can download it from: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/

1)    VLC Media Player

Can be used instead of Windows media player.
You can download from:  https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html

1)    Blender 3D

Can be used instead of Autodesk Maya.
You can download it from:  https://www.blender.org/

1)    Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager

Can be used instead of Parallels.
You can download it from: https://www.virtualbox.org/

1)    BitTorrent

Can be used instead of Boxopus.
You can download it from: http://www.bittorrent.com/

1)    BitDefender Antivirus

You can download it from: https://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/free.html?awc=2873_1518194025_9226562e7622aed0e7f8d7ceb1f76fe0

1)    Libre Office


Can be used instead of Microsoft Office Suite.
You can download it from: https://www.libreoffice.org/

1)    GIMP


Can be used instead of Adobe Photoshop

You can download it from: https://www.gimp.org/

1)    Fedora

You can download it from:  https://getfedora.org/

1)    Ubuntu

You can download it from:  https://www.ubuntu.com/


1)    Notepad++

Can be used instead of Sublime Text or Coda.

You can download it from: https://notepad-plus-plus.org/

1)    Audacity

Can be used instead of Adobe Audition CC.
You can download it from: https://www.audacityteam.org/

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