Open-source software or OSS represents a community approach to developing software where anyone can copy, modify and redistribute the source code without paying royalties or fees. This is opposed to commercial software vendors whose source code is not distributed, is treated as intellectual property and whose customers pay licensing and maintenance fees for the use of that software.   To get a better understanding of how freedom and flexibility can be achieved through OSS, the team here at NetSphere Strategies put...

In this week’s three-part blog series, the team at NetSphere Strategies laid out the pros and cons of various options related to launching a new eCommerce website. In part one, we weighed the benefits of hosting a site, and in part two, we looked at the pluses and minuses behind buying a commercial eCommerce solution.   For our third installment, we investigated why a business owner should or shouldn’t choose to build his or her own site using open source software....