I have to say that given the chance to work with Opensource software or purchasing supported software, I would always choose supported, "real" software. Too often the big buzz word in technology is Open source. The allure of "free" software might sound enticing to over-budgeted educational endeavors, but sacrificing the support structure to save a few thousands is not worth the "free" aspects of these types of software. Another buzz word about Opensource is customizable. this is misleading in that first of all in order to customize an opensource software you need to have a staff member with that knowledge. Next, inadvertatnly, the institution becomes a slave to the person who is adminsitering the program. If they leave, there goes the custom aspect of the opensource software.
Ok, now that I got that out of the way....please let me know which way you "swing" on this topic. Do you go for the cheap/free customizable software with limited support and a "do it yourself" type of administering or do you decide to pay the money to license a legitimate software with a real support structure?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Generally speaking, I go for the "real" version of the software because I do not find that OpenSource is as robust as I need it to be. With that being said, I do use Open Source versions at times. For example, the audio editing component of Adobe Premiere Pro isn't that robust. Afterall, it is primarily a video editing software. So, I have at times used an Open Source audio edtiting software called Audacity-http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ in order to be able to have more options with audio editing.
Post a Comment