Open Source Software and Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is taking away the mess of emails that are sent back and forth in order to collaborate on a certain idea. Google docs is an easy way to edit a document online, while the changes are being updated in real time- with the ability to allow others to edit the document as well. This cuts down the time you have to spend looking through emails trying to figure out which one is the most current and most updated. I think cloud computing is becoming more widespread, especially among companies.

Open source software is also a great tool. In my opinion, if I was planning on using a certain application everyday I would purchase the proprietary software, thus ensuring that the server will not be down, or crash at an inopportune time. Otherwise, I would recommend using the open source software. If a photo needs to be edited and you do not have Photoshop, the open source version of Photoshop will do the trick! This way, money is not being unnecessarily spent on programs that will not get much use out of.

In the field of education, this could help students, whose family cannot afford to buy Microsoft Office, complete assignments. I remember when I was in elementary school and I had to type up a paper to turn in, and my parent's computer was in the shop getting fixed. It was a hassle for my mom to find a friend that has a computer that I could use for this assignment. Open source software if also useful is students need to use a program, but only once or twice, so they do not need to buy the proprietary version of the software.

This article explains another way that open source software is useful in schools. James Gaskin writes about how, instead of updating software on computers in the schools, the schools turned to open source software to save money. This is a good idea in the aspect that it will save thousands of dollars by operating on the free versions of Microsoft Office and others. On the other hand, it would be a problem if the server of one of these programs was down while trying to have a class work within the program.