4. There are several common examples of open-source software that many people use in their everyday lives. Can you name any?
Firefox, is the main one that I use everyday which is very open, and there are many more like Open Office, Bit Torrent, Notepad 2, RSSowl, Juice, and many more. I only know Open Office and Firefox while the others I never use in my life.
5. Do you believe that the quality of an open-source software product is likely to be higher or lower than the quality of software produced by a large corporation? How do you think technical support for open-source software compares to that for proprietary software?
I for sure think that the quality of most of the open software has a low quality build mainly because the amount of profit that the manufacture will get is really low, so they would not spend so much effort or time with the software leaving it with a very built leading to a low quality software. The quality of a software is determined by the price or as we know of profit that the software would get, if something that is considered free the quality of the work wouldn't be the same as something that is expensive. But there exceptions like Firefox which I think is an awesome software in terms of web browsing, but some I can't just handle the quality because they can't compare with the ones that you need to pay for. The technical support also ties in with the price because for example if you buy a real copy of windows 7, if you contact the technical support they can answer you very quickly due to the amount of profit they got in order to higher more workers to answer your questions 24/7. Else if you own a Linux the technical support would be slow and there are working hours just because its an open source software, so the profit that they get is very low leaving many spots empty in the technical support.
6. Daniel Bricklin, whose biography appears in Chapter 12, did not patent (or copyright) his software, believing that software should not be proprietary. As a result, he lost a great deal of money in the form of possible royalties. Do you consider his actions to be visionary or naive?
I think that his actions are probably visionary in his point of view but in my perspective I think it is naive. From his perspective he actually planned for the future, because no one ever didn't copyright their software while Daniel is experimenting how it is like to not copy right his software. He thought that not copy righting it allows it to expand and have improvements to it, so he'll be able to earn more according to his plan. At first I think that his plan was perfect, but there are people around there that take advantage of the software to make their own profit so his plan was not perfect at all, granting him a great loss in money and time. While from our perspective we view him as naive because we already know the effects of how not copy righting your work will be, but Daniel thought that it was beneficial instead of having a huge disadvantage.
7. The Free Software Foundation is a tax-exempt charity that raises funds for work on the GNU Project. GNU software is free. Go to the Web and read about its philosophy. Compare GNU products with those of manufacturers such as Microsoft and Sun.
I think that the GNU software has completely no match with Microsoft in particular because of asked a person about which operating system that they know, everyone would answer Mac or Windows. Rarely anyone would answer GNU or Linux, which is considered to be similar operating software. Microsoft has far more developed applications that allow users to both enjoy and be able to do their work, while the GNU as only a few applications that are not so complex and isn't able to tasks that a Windows can do. Examples include like games that can only be ran on Windows but not on the GNU. The GNU is a free or an open source software that anyone is able to edit having the advantage over Microsoft which is non-free software. The quality or the amount of products of the GNU still lack because manufactures that are going to invest with GNU earn very less profit so they rather contact Windows to earn maximum profit for their greater good, which is the reason why free softwares lack good applications or quality.
8. If you were to continue with computing and become a programmer, which side of the argument would you take: Should software be copy righted or should it be free?
If I was a programmer I would still be choosing it to be copy righted because having it to be copy righted means that quality of the work should be really good, so if I was a programmer I would still take the same side no matter what, because when I go ahead and make my software I would need to have a lot of profit that is able to pay off the hard work that I did in order to create the software. Not to be selfish but what is the point of being a programmer if you're not earning money. Copy righted softwares are way better all thought free softwares can be modified and improved I still think that money plays a huge role in this world and people are still selfish enough not to do these kinds of benefits to the society in helping to modify some of the softwares.
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