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To Be Sure Use FOSS

Amazon deleted “1984” the novel, from its Kindle devices without user help. Microsoft can block use of Windows XP if they suspect that your copy is obtained illegally. Internet services being offered for free one day and gets cancelled the next. Your data entrusted for storage in an online storage is safe or is it?

You'd like to be assured that if you purchase a machine for personal use that once you put your data there, you have total control over what happens to it. Of course apart from the power outage and bugs, you assume that you will always have access to your information. You assume that when you purchase a software contained in that CD you have in your hand and paid for it with your money, you have FREE use. That whatever content is generated when you use it, is yours. You assume too much.

The only way to be completely sure is to use free and open source (FOSS) software. Software that can be used and modifed by anyone and can be passed on to anyone who wants it. In other words, software that are non-proprietary, limited-rights reserved or none at all.

Most of us are aware of open source because Google has been giving away most of their software codes to the open source community. The open source model of developing software is arguably the right way to go. Everything is transparent, it is efficient, talent from all over the world is pooled. If you want proof that this is the way to go, you only have to look at Mozilla and its open source products like Firefox and Thunderbird. Without the open source alternatives from Mozilla and the Linux community, Microsoft would have us use Vista and demand upgrades in our machines.

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