While many of us use computers that are completely under the control of software sold by Microsoft, a whole alternative world of software exists. This alternative is called “open source software.” Aside from the fact that open source software is often completely free (some isn't), there are other good reasons for choosing open source software. Because the vast majority of computers now run standard Microsoft configurations, the majority of attacks via the Internet are aimed at Microsoft products such as Windows XP, the Microsoft Internet Explorer Web Browser, and Microsoft Word, and Outlook. So the use of open source software as an alternative may actually be more secure at the present time.
Functionally, open source software may work better than proprietary software. These “products” are the result of the voluntary cooperative effort of thousands of programmers all over the world who collaborate via the Internet. Problems are addressed as soon as they are discovered, so errors are often fixed more rapidly than in commercial software. We analysts could learn something from the way these massive collaborative projects are organized.
On the other hand, because of the lack of commercial incentive to produce easily understood manuals, open source programs are often not suited for complete beginners.
The APsaA WWW server computer, is run entirely on free open source software including the Linux operating system, the Majordomo List server, the Sendmail E-mail Server, the Apache Web Server, and the Perl and Python programming languages.
Many open source programs can run on Windows computers and Macs. My favorite open source program at present is Mozilla, a completely free open source WWW Browser and e-mail program which is a wonderful alternative to Microsoft Internet Explorer. You can download the current version (1.1 at the time I'm writing this) at mozilla.org.
“TechNotes” runs in each issue of TAP, with the aim of educating us about aspects of technology and communications relevant to our work.