Appendices

6. Why participants and others would choose to use FLOSS

A very wide range of reasons was generated. Participants were asked both why they might or do use FLOSS, and why they throught others might do so. Among the many reasons cited were:

Empowerment of end users

Increased stability and security

Free

Not then dependent on others

Stable & robust

Decrease in wasted time re-booting

Avoid fear of legal challenges through pirate/cloned software

Extensible by self

Can give it to colleagues at no cost and without risk

Data storage is transparent

As a practitioner, it allows you to have state of the art software that is shareable

The Trust generated by millions of users ensure potential bugs are fixed proactively before a pressure of reports builds up (and a commercial vendor has to then issue a new release

First time, chose it to satisfy curiosity

Use FLOSS because it works and does not fall over

FLOSS does not have an open-ended cost structure

FLOSS allow tinkering by individuals

FLOSS does the job, reliably; you cannot kill Linux by deleting something (accidentally)

There are no virus issues (at present, but widescale usage may change this perspective)

Some people use it because they have a philosophical belief that such software should be free.

Users can try and select software before loading it permanently

OSS is not yet good for the ‘novice / idiot user’

It is easy enough to set up child-limiting partitions

Appx7>>

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Copyright (c) 2004 IMIA Open Source Working Group and British Computer Society Health Informatics Committee

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