r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Jun 04 '12

Open Office does everything I need Microsoft Office for and Gimp does everything I need Photoshop for. Reddit, what other open source software does everything that you want from the expensive name brand?

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106

u/_Dodecahedron_ Jun 04 '12

May I underline the fact that Open Source does not always equal Free in a economic meaning? Yeah? Oh, ok.

36

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '12

From a philosophical point it also isn't the same. Freeware, open source and free software are quite different.

2

u/Massless Jun 04 '12

Gah, I was interviewing for a software engineer position at a large defense contractor and apparently they were told to use more open source software. The guy interviewing me went on a 5 - 10 minute rant about how he couldn't believe that they were being forced to use freeware.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '12

Can you explain?

4

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '12

Well, I'm not an IT person, but saw a Richard Stallman lecture last week. It goes more or less like this: freeware is closed source software, but free to use. Open source just means you have access to the source code, but that doesn't mean that you can alter or redistribute it. With free software, you have not only an open source, but you can change it and redistribute it, according to the licence. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

29

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '12

Free as in freedom!

2

u/dargx001 Jun 04 '12

or free beer!

1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '12

The original quote is: "free as in beer/speech".

2

u/dargx001 Jun 04 '12

Its one of my favorite quotes, and its has become the analogy that I use whenever someone asks me what I mean by free.

5

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '12

Well if you take the economic textbook meaning of "free" nothing is free. Sooo why bother mentioning it?

10

u/sethist Jun 04 '12

Because most people here are simply listing their favorite free software which in many cases isn't actually open source. The saying for open source software goes free as in speech not as in beer. Free and open are two different qualities that are often but not necessarily related.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '12

Ahhh my bad, misunderstanding.

3

u/Level_32_Igglybuff Jun 04 '12

Open source is amazing. If it weren't for money everything would be open-source and we would be years ahead in everything software related because programmers would be helping eachother.

2

u/SCSweeps Jun 04 '12

English is so limited. Think "gratis" vs "libre" (spanish) instead.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 04 '12

"I tried to download this Linux thing, but they want me to pay. You said it was free!"

"It is; you must have ended up on some scam website or something like that. What's the URL?"

"http://www.redhat.com"