Regained respect for the Freeware world

After I installed openOffice.org I regained some respect for the Freeware world. Now I try out a free software first, do some research into it and if it can meet my demands for the time being I go for it. If I cannot do without a particular SW then I go ahead and buy it. Well, its more fun this way as I'm a software engineer and the first thing I have to do is respect what my fellow colleagues have been developing for us. There are so many freeware utilities out there and Google will help you get them all. Just be sure not to grab some adware programs that say are free and will finally destroy your PCs. Pick your SWs and go for the good ones. Just because they are free you don't have to like it. If they really are standard good replacements of the expensive ones then go for it.

I would love to start a project that is open source and free for all. When can we see the day when most of our personal utility SW is free and open source? Its a pity that I never believed in the free and open world from the time it came into existence. I have lost out on so many grounds of technological breakthroughs that these folks have achieved. I could have been a part of the openOffice.org team, I could have been the part of the Fedora project. I could have...

At work I use a lot of open source/freeware projects - Fedora Core, Bugzilla, PuTTY, CVS, Java and many more... I just love it! Why is it that we all feel only when we pay money we will get a good product. I love Microsoft and I still love Microsoft BUT sometimes they are a tad too expensive.