Yesterday, I met an old friend who is studying abroad online. During our same old “how’ve you been”, I told him that I have started collecting some facts related to IT and publish them on the web and sent him some links. While getting excited on what I m currently doing he told me, “Do write on topics related to open source! We have to beat out Microsoft!”

What’s next if might have to spend part of our fortune fixing on bugs? Is this affordable to The Third World Countries? Is Open Source Software Hope or Despair to & Third World Countries?

Of course, He is not only the one I met who wants to battle and dominate proprietary software. There are so many enthusiastic peoples and organizations that supports open source and wants to wash up the dominance of proprietary software. I have heard “open source is the only phenomenon to achieve technical independence for cash-strapped countries like ours” in several seminars and workshops. Low and affordable Cost, technical promises of open software, free of charge were some issues that are attractive and most talked about in the seminars and workshops.

However, in my opinion open source is not always free and the products and services advertised as open source don’t always seem to be open. For instance, Web Meeting’s regarded as open source but only in a sense that source code was available to purchasers of sets in blocks of 100 and at a price of close to $40,000 per block. For a third world countries where per capita income is less than the price of the computer this price does not seem like a price of open source software.

Also, the price of an Open Source Software critically depends on the number of users. What about the cost if there are only few? We cannot say that open source software is bug free. What’s next if might have to spend part of our fortune fixing on bugs? Is this affordable to The Third World Countries? Is Open Source Software Hope or Despair to & Third World Countries?

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