This post has nothing to do with dental health, so if you got here thinking that, sorry in advance 😅.
FLOSS [Free|Libre and Open-Source Software] is a software movement that I am passionate about, given its importance in our digitally reliant society. For the duration of this post I will be referring to it as free software, but open-source and free don’t always mean the same thing either. It encapsulates the ideology that software should be free, in every term of the word - free as in beer 🍺 and free as in freedom 🕊️. This is in contrast to how most software is published, that which is propriertary and closed-source. This stagnates development by walling off the development, maintenance and enhancement of software. Free software allows for knowledge to be shared and code to evolve rapidly with the contribution of developments working together to realise a common goal. Commercial and closed-source software development is restricted to internal development, limited by financial, business and managerial decisions. These solutions are often aimed at and used in professional or enterprise environments, advertised as having better support, security and user experience. Open-source alternatives to existing commercial solutions have a much lower adoption rate, usually for the reasons specified above (You don’t have to look far - chances are you are forced to use Microsoft products every day 😢).
While a lot of these concerns do have an element of truth (try convincing your friends to use XMPP to chat, even with the benefits it brings 😆), I do believe that we can work to change the general perception of free software. Software security is a complicated conversation, but the encryption algorithms, operating systems and blockchains that power the modern internet are almost all open-sourced, so they must be doing something right! Free software just has the inherent advantage of having more eyes on the project, including hackers and unrelated developers. A larger talent pool allows for exploits and bugs to be found and fixed quicker, no argument. Oh and something else, the free software model completely eliminates piracy 🏴☠️, like totally. What’s the point of risking legal action if the software you seek is free to download, free to use however, free to modify. Another major advantage of free software is the prevention of abandonware; software that is no longer actively maintained by the original creator. Once closed-source software is abandoned its lifespan is immediately shortened and it quickly becomes legacy code that loses support on modern systems. Orphaning projects to the free software community benefits everyone, bringing new life into old software. It can be updated, enhanced and supported for the next generation of programmers, hobbyists and users. And yes, I know that older software can be reverse-engineered or replicated, but the amount of work and effort required is often greatly underestimated…
If you want to start making the change in your own life, adopting free software really isn’t that difficult. Most of the programs that you currently use have free alternatives, and a quick search will point you in the right direction 😉. I don’t expect you to jump ship to Linux straight away and completely adopt the free software lifestyle. A gradual change will make things much easier and give you time to come to terms, but in the end it will absolutely worth it! And once you’ve gone down the rabbit hole, you might find it hard to come back to reality…