What you need to know about the different software

Open source software is software whose code is freely available to anyone who wants to change and redistribute it.

New commercial support services, smaller licensing fees, increased collaboration, and a friendlier platform to sell products and services are just a few of the reasons open source is so attractive to IT departments.

On the other hand, proprietary software are computer programmes that are exclusive property of their developers or publishers, and cannot be copied or distributed without complying with the owners’ licensing agreements.

Almost all commercial software is proprietary, but many new programmes (such as Apache web server, Linux operating system, Ubuntu and StarOffice office suite) are non-proprietary (and free).

In their book, Open Source for the Enterprise: Managing Risks, Reaping Rewards, Dan Woods, a seasoned CTO, and Gautam Guliani a software architect and developer, argue that all too often, the discussion about using open source software in an organization takes on an emotional or political tone.

The duo argues that open source software is changing the world of Information Technology, but making it work for your company “is far more complicated than simply installing a copy of Linux.”

“If you are serious about using open source to cut costs, accelerate development, and reduce vendor lock-in, you must understand how open source is different from commercial software and what responsibilities and risks it brings,” reads the book in part.

Business Software Alliance in their annual report for 2010 estimated that 79 per cent of software installed in Kenya was pirated.
The crime in the same period was estimated that it had cost Kenya US$85 million. Similarly, Microsoft said it was incurring huge losses amounting to millions of dollars due to software piracy and counterfeiting of its trademarks.

For software vendors, the best path is to adhere to open standards and develop web services that promote interoperability of their products with those of other vendors and with open source products as well. Ironically, the best way for software vendors to preserve and gain market share today is by giving buyers the freedom to abandon the vendor’s own product.

For software buyers, the best strategy is to consider mature and established open source products as well as proprietary software products that adhere to open standards. In this way, buyers can choose the best software product for the job, knowing that the value of their investment will be preserved without locking the organisation in to a single vendor solution.

Emerging economies have become a driving force behind PC software piracy. Piracy rates in the developing world are 2.5 times higher than those in the developed world, and the commercial value of pirated software ($31.9 billion) accounts for more than half of the world total.

The most cited advantages of licensed software globally are access to technical assistance (88 per cent) and protection from hackers and malware (81 per cent).

Although it may be more difficult to find users familiar with all free and open source software variants, there are vast amounts of available online documentation and help, available books, and support available for Linux.

However Microsoft Windows includes its own help section, has vast amount of available online documentation and help, as well as books on each of the versions of Windows.

According to Laviniah Muthoni, Microsoft's Public Relations Manager, East and Southern Africa, a key advantage of using genuine Microsoft software is that you can get all the latest updates for free. Although most tech savvy users can pirate or crack into most of the Microsoft software, Ms Muthoni argues that these are not secured as lots of security modules are changed or completely removed which makes a system vulnerable to number of threats.

Microsoft tries to check if your software is genuine or not through various updates from time to time and if they find your software is not genuine then you will get notification every time you use your software.

But if you are using genuine software then you need not worry about it at all and you can enjoy latest updates and offers by Microsoft.

“Although Microsoft has made great improvements over the years with security on their operating system, their operating system continues to be the most vulnerable to viruses and other attacks. Linux, a free and open source software, on the hand has always been a very secure operating system. Although it still can be attacked when compared to Windows, it much more secure,” said Mr Josphat Gachie, an investor in a Nairobi based digital village