Week 11 Open Source Software

This week we talked about open source software. We all were required to post in a forum about our thoughts on how moving towards OSS would effect our society.

I think that moving towards open source software and cloud computing will become very prevalent in the years to come. Using these types of tools, offers some of the same abilities that purchase-only software offers but for free. With focus on open source software, many people would be able to use these products because they would now be available to people that may be less fortunate of having software like Adobe Photoshop which can be expensive. OSS would be a great alternative for schools or organizations that may be did not have the funding to provide all their computers with expensive software. The users could still be trained in the software and receive generally the same product.
Looking at cloud computing, it could really open up the way people think about computers. They might not need as much storage space because lots of the users information and documents could be stored in the clouds. It is really a very efficient way to store information to because it is sort of used like a public utility. You use only what you need. This would be a big money saver for schools and organizations alike.

As far as Advertising is concerned, OSS could be really helpful there as well by helping agencies communicate with their clients. The following is a link for GIMP which is a OSS program similar to Photoshop.

GIMP