Free Software by the Open Source Community

Back in 1970s, the first generation of desktop computers, like the Commodore PET (Personal Electronic Transactor), the IBM PC (Personal Computer) and the first Apple models were hugely expensive and severely limited in speed and capability. Each was different and incompatible to others so software developed to make them useful was equally expensive. In many cases, desktop computers had no ready source of application software at all and whwere the user had to develop it themselves. The Sharp MZ-80K was a good example of this and yet chosen to be one of the first computers employed in Fife schools using SP-5025 BASIC or SP-4016 is a disc drive was attached.

It was a time when many computer programmers 'cut their teeth' on the new and rapdily advancing technology and where a tiny company called Microsoft signed one of the most important deals in business history and allowed it to become one of the richest on the planet! Their first product was called MS-DOS and initially designed to run hand in hand with the new desktop models made by IBM but it wasn't long before others saw the chance to improve this 'basic' software to include new developments like usage of a mouse with a graphical user interface of GUI. Geoworks, GEM and others entered the marketplace and in addition, new applications built with this new software in mind. Indeed, GEM can be regarded as a forerunner of Windows and where some of the best GEM application software was a Page Publisher program called Timeworks and which was later further developed into a product called Pressworks. Both software packages did much the same as Ventura, the market leader in this area at the time but at a tiny fraction of the cost.

In a similar way, the industrial standard word processors were 'Word Perfect' and 'Wordstar' but these later gave way to a new program called 'Word' from Microsoft and where all of them cost more than anyone other than big business could afford. At best, the individual might resort to the 'try and buy' market where some remarkable software had been developed by others and sometimes in their spare time. Galaxy Lite was one of this author's favourites despite having an American dictionary spell checker with no alternative. Given some degree of magazine research, it was possible to examine many programs on discs posted to you (there was no Internet then) and decide if it was useful to you. If you liked it and wanted to use it then you paid a fee to buy such usage and a further piece of software would be posted on disc to free up deliberately introduced limitations in the trial versions of the software. This was known as shareware and typically more amateurish than any commercial offering. Sometimes authors would present the whole of their work to the World completely free of charge yet often subject to conditions concerning copyright and other terms and conditions. This was and is still known as freeware and where no commercial value of any kind has been attached.

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Related Articles In This Series

INTRODUCTION - The World of Open Source Software
WORD PROCESSING - with Abiword
OFFICE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE - with Open Office 3
DESK TOP PUBLISHING - with Scribus
INTERNET BROWSER - Better than Internet Explorer
EMAIL CLIENT SOFTWARE - Better than Outlook
IMAGE MANIPULATION SOFTWARE - The Gimp
MEDIA PLAYER - VLC
The Mozilla KomPozer Web Design Software (Currently being written)
The Linux Operating System vs The Windows Operating System

In a new century in which technology has advanced rapidly with usage of the Internet and far higher performance computers, the old shareware and freeware marketplace has largely disappeared and been replaced by a better communicated global movement known as the Open Source Community and where many programmers collaborate together on projects to create highly commendable software capable of matching or even surpassing many commercial products. In some cases, well known Internationally recognised brands and companies have joined and contributed to this community and aided research or even contributed much of their own development into certain projects including software they no longer desire to develop further and where the Open Source Community has continued that development on a voluntary basis and advanced these products to a state where some can actually be regarded to many commercial rivals. Such products have the backing of many and where, in the event of a bug being discovered, remedy is often accomplished within a few days rather than the weeks it might take even the best run commerical organisations.

It's all the more amazing then to learn that anyone in the World can access these programs completely free of charge! Even if you don't like them, for whatever reason, you have the choice to walk away and buy something more in tune with your needs. Beware though, the new and current generation of Open Community Software is likely to surprise you in many ways!

In this series, we plan to select some of the best Open Source Software and illustrate how anyone can save a major amount of money by using a radically different approach to computers and software, whether in college, university, running a business or simply a keen user of computers at home. As the series progresses, we intend to show how older computers can have a new lease of life using the highly stable and proven Linux operating system and where such application can actually exceed that of the most modern computer hardware on the planet!

In traditional terms, the notion of free software has implied something of greatly inferior quality but in recent times, this has been successfully challenged by the army of thousands who contribute to Open Source Software and where has become a powerful challenger to many commercial rivals.