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Written by Von
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Thursday, 31 May 2007 |
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Welcome to the new Vonagio.co.uk homepage
During the construction of this site, I have tried wherever possible to use open source solutions: - Joomla! is used to manage and administer the site.
- My webhost uses LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, and Php) on their servers.
- I even used an Ubuntu Linux machine to manage and create content (GIMP, Openoffice.org and Firefox).
Open source software, to quote the Open Source Initiative "is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in." This means that you can use and change the source code (i.e. modify the program) almost as much as you want. All open source software is licensed under an OSI approved license (or similar), other free programs with restrictions on their use are just freeware. These licenses allow modification and distribution of the software, but sometimes there are restrictions enforced such as preserving the same license or keeping the software free (in cost). The free (£0) aspect of open source is attactive, but I really try to use it because I like to have the freedom to feel that I actually own the software, in contrast to the stringent licensing of closed source programs. I have often found that open source alternatives to closed source software use less system resources and are less 'bloated'.
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