Summary
Open Futuro wants to promote awareness about Open Source and Free Open Source Software (FOSS). Open Futuro has the commitment with the world community to show the advantages of these products and the benefits they can acquire if they embrace the use of them. For example, Open Source and FOSS can lower the cost of students education. Instead of acquiring non-open-source software to work on class presentations and research papers (with an approximate cost of $145) students can use OpenOffice.org (with no cost) which can fulfill the needs of the students. Situations like this can be seen in many industries and households where Open Source can help and Open Futuro wants to tell the world about it.
Motivation
Open Source and FOSS are the future of software due to its innovation and quality. The world needs to know about the effort of these communities to develop better and free software. Free is a clear benefit for individuals and organizations. Individuals and organizations have useful tools at their disposal among the Open Source pool of software. No cost for the software translates to savings. Savings are equal to reducing the cost of operations.
Open Software and FOSS can make education, government, non-for-profit organizations and individuals better by reducing the cost of operations related to software expenses.
Cost of Software Example
For example: If the cost of use for each copy of a software (license) is $1 dollar, and 11 copies are needed that is $11 dollars in total. Now, how much does each copy of the software the organization uses cost? If the software copy costs $150, then the total is $1,650. The formula could be expressed as follows:
- Total cost of software = T
- Cost of software = C
- Software copies = S
Formula:
T = C*S
A sample table for the Total Cost of Software formula is available. The Total Cost of Software table contains a colored range of cost in the following six ranges:
- From $0 to less than $150
- From $150 to less than $1,000
- From $1,000 to less than $7,500
- From $7,500 to less than $25,000
- From $25,000 to less than $100,000
- $100,000 and more
The compared cost to Open Source software is as follows:
- Total cost of software = T
- Cost of software = C = $0
- Software copies = S
Formula:
T = C*S
We do not need a table to illustrate this, because the result is always zero (0). Why is the result always zero? Because, Open Source is freely available to the public. That means it's free.
Conclusion
If you or your organization want to save money consider Open Source and Free Open Source Software.