Open source has it all.

Open source really has me excited. Not only does it have an application for just about every task you need to do you can also modify it to exactly suit your needs. I have seen proprietary programs that cost thousands of dollars, yearly, that just don't do as much as what an equivalent open source program can do. I ask myself how can these companies make and then sell such programs without any quiver of conscience in their collective souls?

They don't even make allowances for a customisational need. The programs they sell are as is and no more. Sure they may have several versions of a program, home, office and enterprise for example but they are all essentially the same program with the same codebase. Just the simpler versions are in reality crippled versions of the most expensive package. It is all just a way to divide up the pie into different layers to make more money out of each slice.

In many cases proprietary programs give more functionality than what is actually needed. You are actually paying for stuff you will never use. At least with open source you can, if you wish, strip away functionality you don't need and use your available computing power for work that is important. Most of the time there is an open source program out there which will provide exactly what you want and no more, or less. Great for starting out as a baseline and having the program grow as your needs do.

You can find an open source program that will give you, for free, just about application you could wish for. They range from simple email clients to full blown 3D graphics engineering packages. There is open source for mail servers, web servers, telephones, operating systems, business applications, teaching, scientific, movie editing, audio mixing and many other things that I cannot think of. Even the Giant Hadron Collider runs on open source.

For those that think open source is only for small fish then they don't know that the almighty Google runs on open source and without open source the financial market would be at the level of bartering for pigs and chickens. Even whole countries run on open source.

So if open source is good enough to be trusted with trillions of dollars and billions of lives then it should be good enough for you.