Open Source Goes Beyond Free

This article brings up some fascinating thoughts on what works and what does not regarding saving money with open source software. It’s not merely the price of the software itself, as sometimes there are still support costs. No, it is a matter of actually looking at all of the costs involved to see if the savings is absolute.

Surprisingly, in most cases it appears to be. So despite the support/subscription costs associated with using select open source solutions, there is still a significant enough savings involved that it makes not using the proprietary option the right choice. Interesting…

Even with all of this good news, there is no question that the above linked article is primary speaking about open source software designed for the enterprise. Because honestly, last time I checked, application suites such as Open Office did not require a lot of support time. So it sort of limits options like that for making money.Then again, when combined with other software, it certainly does help others  to save on the spending!