I've used various Open-source programs over time. I used Knoppix to revive an almost-dead computer; 7-Zip to open .tar.gz files under Window$; and the Mambo CMS under PHP, Apache and Linux for my web site. I've found most open-source programs to be faster, leaner and easie to use than their commercial counterparts. Here's my reccomendation: use open-source software. Bugs are patched faster, there have more features, and much lower price tags (actually, free). You might have to do a little research to find these products; but once you do, they are worth the work.

A Major source for Open Source programs is at sourceforge.net. They have some pretty good stuff there. The Web Calendar program, filezilla, Bittorrent.

Yes it seems Opensource is a bless for the home user, and a curse for the software developer who creates programs for money. Altrough there are programs which don't have a good open source alternative...

What you are saying makes perfect sence to me. Why would you buy a commercial program when you can get open source software that does the same thing for free? I think eventually a lot people will open their eyes and try to get as much open source software as possible instead of the most commercial software as possible.

I really hate when people use "Micro$oft" or "Window$". It just makes me angry.

I use linux sometimes, it's great. However many times for specialized software is not always readliy avaliable.

Sorry for the "language". One of the things with open-source is that these apps are free in cost and rights. You can do whatever you want (within reasonable boundries) with them. You could even make an almost total re-write of the program and put it up on the Internet for the world to download. You can do everything except remove the copyright statements.