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While sometimes open source is a good choice, be it price, quicker time to market, not re-inventing the wheel, most of my experience has been that many of the open source packages that I/we used were failed products, that were once for profit, but no one would buy. I agree with it is nice being able to customize some source if problems, or enhancements were necessary. But in the long run I do not have faith in open source.
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One can't give a general answer like that, I could probably check each and every checkbox depending on which open source program we're discussing.
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I agree. It ranges from superb (in most categories ) to poor (in most categories). As does proprietary software.
Kevin
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I have a few personal favourites like xmind, winmerge, filezilla etc. These tools have changed the way i develop applications.
Ofcourse there are quality issues with oss, but it really is a choice between expensive stuff and work being done.
I prefer MS Office over Open office though MS Office is paid. It is simple the best productivity tool one can have.
For hardcore development I found eclipse useful, but too cumbersome to setup for basic stuff like debugging. Nothing beats visual studio !
Over all i will say its like a love hate relationship. 
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Licensing issues are a major problem! GNU Gpl style licenses are just pure fanatical madness.
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Completely Agree with it. 99% these GPLs are not read by the user then there is no sense to have it to just click on 'Accept/Agree'. 
With Regards,
Shivam Sharma
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Many of the reasons that Open-source is touted as superior are related to the number of eyes reviewing and fixing the code, adding features, adding quality.
Well, a project actually has to have 10's to 1000's of developers to get this law of averages to kick into effect and smooth out the overall quality of a project. This is not the case for the majority of open-source projects. If one project is touted as high-quality, it's used to try to justify another as high-quality. If one project has a major fail, such as the recent SSH security flaw, that's used to discredit every other project with a blanket statement.
Therefore, I believe one of the most important things to consider when choosing open-source software is how large is the community centered around the project?
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The trouble of open software comes in great projects. No one takes responsibility if a major coder resigns.
Do you remember the "Hearbleed" bug in OpenSSL? In result of it some big player went to donators, to support the security.
Or in OpenWRT also were also some big bugs.
Press F1 for help or google it.
Greetings from Germany
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How many open source projects are out there?!
I dare say more than commercial products.
What percentage of open source products are worth using?!
This is where it depends comes into play. What will meet your needs, what is better, what is adequate compared to overpriced niche commercial software?
General users don't want to pay for things that they can get free some other way.
Speaking as a developer, there are fantastic Open-Source projects out there. Some that many other open-source projects leverage, and also many that commercial products depend upon.
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Ok, so this was meant to be a one line comment, but it turned into a full on rage fit :P So apologies in advance. And I'd also like to say that, I in no way intend to offend anybody in this comment. And, I would also like to acknowledge that yes, there is some great OSS out there that I really love. That being said, here goes...
I'm not a "Fanboy" of any sort, and I love the idea of open source software, but in my experience, as both a User and a Developer, it sucks.
Ubuntu:
Cannot remember window placement and sizes (it's very, very rare), and about 80% of the time on a fresh install, every single window opens at 0,0 (very-top-left) of the screen. You go online and you see everybody complaining but no solutions. You ask questions and you get some bitchy little person complaining that you've asked for help.
Development software:
Absolute crap. Probably among the buggiest software of all open source projects. Even Eclipse and Android Studio for Windows: Buggy as Hell. Not only is Eclipse buggy, but it's a terrible thing to use. Just the "feel" of it is off-putting. Once you try Visual Studio, there really is no going back. Even WebMatrix IDE is better than any open source IDE I've used.
Glade UI Designer (or whatever it's called):
This is what almost got me hooked on Linux, despite not being satisfied with Linux. I thought, hey, this is a decent way to make a quick GUI app without having to write too much of the "plumbing", but the more I used it the more I realised it was also riddled with bugs, and huge, black areas everywhere, where there should be controls and menu options.
Support:
Support is not great. Although I do appreciate the help that I have received, I do not like having to put up with die-hard geeks who expect Linux new-comers to know absolutely every single Terminal command known to mankind. And the support issue (you know, where everybody gets pissed because you asked a question...), is not just a Linux issue. I've found it to be extremenly common among all open source software. And I wouldn't even call the help that I've received as "Support". Not in the way that I call help from Microsoft support. With Open Source software, you're basically in the dark from the moment you have a problem, and you pray and hope to God that somebody, somewhere knows how to fix [insert problem here] and actually makes a decent effort to help you.
I also dislike open source software because people expect too much these days. I'm sick of wanting to buy something, and having a friend tell me to "just download it". I'm sick of people not wanting to pay 0.99cents for an app that I wrote - an app that took 6 freaking months to develop. I'm sick of people saying "it's free, and we have a massive community" yet most of those people cringe at the idea of having to help a new user. Which is understandable. It's not their job. Their job is to just enjoy the free software like me. But that's not the point. The point is: lack of support.
Installation issues. Common amongst many OSS.
Poorly documented software. Not exclusively OSS issue, but very prominent.
I could go on and on.
This was originally meant to be a quick one liner, that went along the lines of, "Many of the most popular and necessary OSS have very simple bugs that should've been ironed out before release." but, I guess I have a lot of built-up rage from when I tried to install a dev library and it had missing dependencies, so I downloaded them and tried to install them but couldn't because those dependencies relied upon, wait for it, more dependencies which were missing... I think you get the point. Open Source software hasn't gotten any better since I first used OSS about 8 years ago. It's horrible. I'm very angry. Well, not anymore. Thanks for letting me vent. Not that I originally intended to.
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jase.y. wrote: Probably among the buggiest software of all open source projects.
I just wanted to drop a line here. SharpDevelop[^] is actually pretty decent. It can't match visual studio but it is a great alternative and it is OSS. Much better than Eclipse, NetBeans, etc IMO.
Not sure if you tried that one.
To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson
----
Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia
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The problem with open source software which I have experienced so far is that in some instances it is not so secure. I am thinking of an example of an open source database system which has generally good performance, but bad documentation. Where I was informed that should a malicious party get the hands on the source code and a database file they could open the database by cirumventing the access control code as the database software did not offer any TDE encryption. But as far as features go it was a great solution as it was regurlarly updated.
On the other hand I once had to work with an open source project(not dot net) which contained certain cryptographic functions and hashes as plugin components etc. It was awesome as this was previously a commercial project. It had good integration with the host IDE package. Then it became open source. Then the vendor brought out new versions of the IDE solution and integration with the cryptographic component started to become more and more troublesome as new IDE's came out and the cryptographic package struggeled to stay updated.
So most of the time I am very thankfull when I find a good open source project which has good integration, no compile errors , good documentation. Seeing that somebody put in a lot of hard work to provide something for a cummunity at great cost to him or her self with mostly no cost towards the community.
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"Where I was informed that should a malicious party get the hands on the source code and a database file they could open the database by cirumventing the access control code as the database software did not offer any TDE encryption."
That has nothing at all to do with source code availability - I've bypassed access control on proprietary databases using exactly that technique in the past. (In fact, as I recall the contents were encrypted, but not encrypted very well, so I bypassed that too.)
If someone gets your unencrypted data, they can read it - whether it's a Word document, an SQL database or a plain text file. Using a more obscure or less flexible system just makes it a bit less convenient - for everybody, authorized or not.
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Sometimes it a good thing to start with open source and make it yours. Remove parts you don't need and change and update parts that you can used. Also sometimes you get stuck so using open source start you on the right track. Then sometimes using open source takes more time than just write your own. (Programmer Beware!)
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Whether a piece of software is open source or proprietary says nothing whatsoever about its quality. There is some outstanding software developed using either model, and there is a whole lot of crap developed using either model.
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svella wrote: Whether a piece of software is open source or proprietary says nothing whatsoever about its quality.
I agree, but with OSS, anyone can be aware of the crap they are using 
But I think OSS opens the door to quality improvement, because everyone can see it and even when they cannot contribute, they can provide feedback.
In the articles I wrote here in CP, I got feedback to improve it and make it better. Without the contributions, the quality would have been worse if I just provided the compiled DLL/EXE.
To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson
----
Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia
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as many other said.
It is quite difficult to compare them or say: This is better or that is crap.
Every program has its pros and cons.
If something fits your needs and works good, go ahead.
If not... try the next possibility until you find the one you need.
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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yeah, It Depends was still going to be my answer
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The initial cost may be low but finally the time you have to invest in connecting all the dots scattered around the whole world proves to be costly. And if you get stuck up after investing significant effort/time, you are between rock and the hard place. Only the creator and the GOD can help...Sometimes neither help
Yes, the innovation is better though
Thanks,
Milind
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One number I'd actually want to see some real research in is if OSS can actually be less secure.
Although OSS can have a lot of good willing people looking for security vulnerabilities, some people with not all that good of an intent can use the OSS concept to actively look for security vulnerabilities to exploit.
All in all, OSS, security-wise is a double-edged sword, what I don't know is which edge is sharper.
To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson
----
Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia
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Fabio Franco wrote: Although OSS can have a lot of good willing people looking for security
vulnerabilities, some people with not all that good of an intent can use the OSS
concept to actively look for security vulnerabilities to exploit.
Ah, so there's so little vulnerabilities in Windows, because people cannot browse the source-code?
So, open source encryption is bad, and proprietary XOR-ing is good?
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Eddy Vluggen wrote: Ah, so there's so little vulnerabilities in Windows, because people cannot browse the source-code?
Don't twist my words please.
I never said closed source software was free of vulnerabilities. What I am saying is that closed source code requires a trial and error approach to find vulnerabilities. Open source code, well or bad written, is there for any malicious hacker to see.
To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson
----
Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia
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Fabio Franco wrote: Don't twist my words please.
I am not yet twisting.
Fabio Franco wrote: Open source code, well or bad written, is there for any malicious hacker to see.
You'd rather have Heartbleed go undetected?
Now I'm twisting
It's a cool question; can code that is public for review, be better or worse than code that is merely seen by a few? The arguments posted are truly baffling.
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Eddy Vluggen wrote: It's a cool question; can code that is public for review, be better or worse than code that is merely seen by a few?
That's exactly the point. Which I don't know the answer.
I would love to see some research on the subject. Is Code that is public better or worse for security? One would say that OSS will have its vulnerabilities detected earlier by peer reviewers, contributors and enthusiasts in general. But who can tell that a malicious developer won't find and exploit them first?
I have no arguments to answer this question, but would love to see them.
To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems - Homer Simpson
----
Our heads are round so our thoughts can change direction - Francis Picabia
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In order to have good source quality and well functioning software you need the following:
- good specifications as you can write clean code only with purpose
- good professionals who write the code, in best case professionals who are not only good but have experience in the given field
This means you can end up with good or bad quality source and/or software in any of these worlds quite easily.
EDIT: If you work with large codebases and/or code that does something non-trivial then you will need support for the libraries you have used in case of serious projects. For this you will often have to pay in both arenas. An interesting thing is that even some proprietary software have licensing schemes that provide the source for you.
modified 19-Aug-14 8:54am.
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