Open Source Software

Free and Open Source Software (FOSS, or more commonly OSS) describes a broad type of software license that makes source code freely available to the general public. In other words, anyone can download the software, use and customize it, and not pay expensive licensing fees. Most open source projects are maintained by communities of software developers who contribute their time and code to the project. In some cases, there can be thousands of developers around the world working on a single project.

There are many benefits to using OSS, including:

• Zero licensing fees
• Ownership; System and data are owned by you, not third party
• Increased security
• Uptime; when other systems are down, yours is up

OSS is used by large corporations, small business, individuals, government, and more; it's even helped take NASA to Mars. There are a number of OSS products you have probably heard of and/or used; the Linux operating system and Mozilla Firefox browsers are two examples.

We help small and medium sized businesses incorporate OSS into their sales, operations, and day-to-day activities.