Communists Have Seized Control of the Internet!

Posted by Laura Bergells

February 23, 2007

I know several web developers who poo-poo anything that is free.

Seriously!

They deeply suspect Open Source-anything, describing the whole phenomenon as some sort of communist plot.

One Windows programmer I know adamantly quoted an old cliche, “You get what you pay for. And if it is free, it cannot be good. And I am always willing to pay extra for quality support.”

(Can anybody really boast of quality support from Microsoft? Anybody? Anybody? )

I have found that many Open Source software solutions that I use offer not only more stable software, but often much better support than paid programs — and yes, for free. (At the end of this post, I will share my top 6 list of open source solutions I cannot live without!)

If “you get what you pay for” is your stumbling block for trying Open Source software, know this: the folks at Source Forge, Joomla, WordPress, or many other freeware sites are happy to accept your donations for their often superior solutions! If you pay them only half of what you would pay for a buggy paid version of the same tool, I am sure the Open Source community would be delighted.

And here is what you DON’T get with Open Source software — You don’t get some passionless tech support drone pointing the finger at someone else and trying to get you to hang up (”oh, that’s not our software. Must be your hardware. Call them. Let me talk to my supervisor before I escalate you to Level 3. Thank you for calling….”)

With Open Source, you don’t use the phone: you most often use an online forum to post your tech questions — and often get an answer in minutes, not days. And the people who answer are decidedly passionate about developing the very best solutions — so they are acutely interested in responding to your problems.

By posting your questions, you are evolving the software (so, yes, you get the feeling that you are an important part of the evolution of technology – instead of some annoying customer that needs to be dismissed as quickly as possible because you are tying up the phone lines.) And because many Open Source developers are donating their time, why, you know how passionate and involved and sincere volunteers can be!

They don’t treat you like an idiot at Open Source forums. And no one has ever made me feel like a jerk for asking a tech question.

I suspect that this “community” attitude is the part that makes Open Source seem like a communist plot to my Windows developer colleagues.

When you use Windows, you are a client or a customer. That’s capitalism.

When you use Open Source, you become part of a community. According to my developer friends, that’s communism.

But I look at it this way: when I can find a product that helps me lower my costs so that I can increase my profits — that is sheer capitalism!

Political leanings aside, I hope you try a few Open Source Freebies. Call me a communist, call me a capitalist: I do not care.

I only want to use the best tools for the job. And in many cases, Open Source provides the tools AND the online support community that help me succeed in business.

Here are six free programs I cannot live without –

OpenOffice.org - Download a Suite that includes a Word Processor, SpreadSheet, and Presentation program. Looks and feels pretty much like MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint — and it even opens and saves as .doc, .xls, .ppt and more.

Filezilla - This is a dandy FTP client. You can always pay for an FTP client – but Filezilla works just as well, if not better than many paid-for programs that I currently own! In fact, I initially had to download Filezilla because an FTP client I paid dearly for would not upload my media files as well as Filezilla!

Audacity - This is a multitrack audio editor. Use it to record and edit podcasts, convert wav to mp3, mix your vocal and sound tracks, and much (much) more.

POPFile - This program sorts your email inbox and helps you fight spam intelligently. Free and easy to use. Better than most paid-for anti-spam software I have purchased.

Joomla - This is a very powerful content management system. Lovely for people and companies who intend to build membership sites and need to easily manage tons of content, including multi-media and written articles. I have built a number of sites in Joomla — and offer free do-it-yourself Joomla video tutorials here.

Wordpress - Last but not least, this very site is a blog powered by Wordpress, one of the most powerful blog platforms on the planet right now. Use Wordpress as your blog platform, and you probably can’t go wrong.

Those are just my top six. There are plenty more, of course.

Which are your favorite, can’t-live-without-them Open Source solutions?