You often heard the term “Open Source Software” but did you ever thought what exactly it is and how it can help you?

Well, Open Source Software (OSS) in simple layman terms means: a software which is free to use in terms of license and for which the source code is openly available so that it can be used by others.

Now, how this freely available source code can be helpful to you as a business? Here are few important reasons for it:

a) Low Cost – generally the proprietary software charge hefty fees, either one-time or through yearly license. If you choose to use this software for few years under license terms, you will be paying to them as per their demand. However, with the OSS you can have the software available to you, free if you can work on it or by paying a service provider relatively very low cost to bring that software to you.

b) Customizable – OSS can be easily customized as per the requirement of the business. This is possible as the source code is openly available whereas in a proprietary software you need to wait for release of their new version and still can not be sure if that will be helpful. Which basically means its time to purchase another more suitable software (OSS this time?) .

c) Large Community – all open source projects have a big community in which hundreds of developers across the globe contribute. This helps in giving quick access to new features to others. Proprietary software remain confined to themselves as their product is the differentiation in the market.

d) Quick Implementation – since there are number of developers working and contributing to the community the wheels are not required to be invented from scratch. You can simply use the piece of code written by others in the community and start using it.

e) Low Risk – since you get a software at a low cost in open source model, as a business you can always try out and see whether it suits your requirement or not. You can not take this risk with proprietary software.