Our mission is to help businesses take advantage of open source software.  You may be wondering why we think open source is so great.  We created this page to answer that very question and to help you understand why open source software is causing a revolution in the software industry.

What is open source software?

Open source software is publicly available and developed by people from all over the world who work together to create free software.

Open source software has special rights that permit anyone to use, change, and redistribute the software.  This unique license is what makes open source software so much different than traditional software.

Why do people create open source software?

Most open source software was created by a programmer who needed software for a specific purpose.  Rather than buying software, this programmer created a new project and released it under an open source license.

Soon after, another programmer with similar requirements found the open source project and improved upon it.  This cycle is repeated as more people get involved with the project.  Eventually, this can lead to a large community of developers and users.

You can read more about this topic on our blog.

What are the reasons to use open source software?

The most compelling reason to use open source software is because it drastically lowers the cost of developing and acquiring software.  This cost reduction is enabled by the efficiencies of world-wide collaboration while developing the software.

Other benefits of open source software include the ability to customize the code to meet your unique requirements, and the freedom from vendor lock-in. 

You can read more about this topic on our blog.

What are the benefits of commercial open source?

When an open source community becomes large enough, a need arises for professional support services.  This is because many business will not use a product unless they can be sure that they will have someone to call if they run into any problems.

Other benefits of commercial open source include hardware and software certifications, warranties, and training.

You can read more about this topic on our blog.