Comparison Of Proprietory Software And Open Source Software Case Study: Uganda Dot Net

ABSTRACT

Proprietary software are programs whose licenses give the user permission to run them

but are not allowed to share, alter or even redistribute them while Open Source

Software/Free Software (OSS/FS), also abbreviated as FOSS (Free Open

Source Software) licenses give users the freedom to run the program for any

purpose, study, modify, and redistribute copies of either the original or modified

program without having to pay royalties to previous developers. Proprietary software has

been the most commonly used software among the public over the years though with the

growth of the Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) industry, FOSS is a

rapidly growing and commercially accepted alternative to proprietary software in the

world. In Uganda, Proprietary software is the mostly used though FOSS is winning

several users too, but most users do not purchase licenses for these software products and

have little or no information about benefits or challenges of using either software. This

research aims at correcting this problem by providing quantitative and qualitative results

that users can use to compare software and thereby purchase appropriate programs for

their organizations. Therefore the choice of OSS/FOSS and proprietary software is an

issue whose importance can not be ignored. Our research reveals that OSS/FOSS and

proprietary performances depend on the context and situation. When it comes to this

parameter, it is hard for one to conclusively say that FOSS or proprietary software is

better. The research, however, reveals that FOSS is more reliable and more secure than

theproprietarysoftware.