The truth is, there are disadvanteges of Open Source Softwares too. Here are some of them that I could think of -
1) Exploiting bugs - For network security and other security products, Open Source softwares should be discouraged. This is so, because any user can just check the source code, find any exploitable bug and bypass its protections. That is very easy. But in case of proprietary ones,the user would have to first reverse-engineer using debugging (the machine code, which is not high level and is hard to understand without knowledge of assembly language programming)
2) Destroying Closed Source Industry - This is another fact. If open source industry gets too much common, proprietary softwares and the Closed source industry will collapse - this would lead to problems of unemployment, financial problems, stock markets would fall below zero! And this would destroy the whole economic balance of the world market...
3) Ripping codes from commercial softwares - Some times, in some cases, people reverse engineer properietary softwares and declare the source code that they obtained as open source. This is just too unethical, and it's more like cheating. This way the company that created the software also suffers greatly.
4) Many different Versions of same application - Since the application is open source, programmers keep releasing their modified application, this causes a little disturbance in the balance. Users can't download and install "everything" to see which one they like.
5) No support exists for open source software- Once you decide to use open source software you are on your own. Agreed, that lots of help is available on the Internet and there are many self-motivated forums that can help you install and run open source software, there is no qualified support available. You have to figure out on your own how to install and use applications without sabotaging your data and hardware. For instance, every second kid in the neighborhood exhorts you to ditch Windows and switch to Linux; many have lost their years of data trying to make the shift. No help documents and manuals are made available since the software is being changed every second week.
1) Exploiting bugs - For network security and other security products, Open Source softwares should be discouraged. This is so, because any user can just check the source code, find any exploitable bug and bypass its protections. That is very easy. But in case of proprietary ones,the user would have to first reverse-engineer using debugging (the machine code, which is not high level and is hard to understand without knowledge of assembly language programming)
2) Destroying Closed Source Industry - This is another fact. If open source industry gets too much common, proprietary softwares and the Closed source industry will collapse - this would lead to problems of unemployment, financial problems, stock markets would fall below zero! And this would destroy the whole economic balance of the world market...
3) Ripping codes from commercial softwares - Some times, in some cases, people reverse engineer properietary softwares and declare the source code that they obtained as open source. This is just too unethical, and it's more like cheating. This way the company that created the software also suffers greatly.
4) Many different Versions of same application - Since the application is open source, programmers keep releasing their modified application, this causes a little disturbance in the balance. Users can't download and install "everything" to see which one they like.
5) No support exists for open source software- Once you decide to use open source software you are on your own. Agreed, that lots of help is available on the Internet and there are many self-motivated forums that can help you install and run open source software, there is no qualified support available. You have to figure out on your own how to install and use applications without sabotaging your data and hardware. For instance, every second kid in the neighborhood exhorts you to ditch Windows and switch to Linux; many have lost their years of data trying to make the shift. No help documents and manuals are made available since the software is being changed every second week.
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