Question

For this week's assignment, answer the following questions.
Give a reason for and against installing software from source code.
Give a reason for and against installing pre-packaged software.

Answer 1

• Advantage of installing software from source code :

1. You do not have to pay money for installing it, thus it save your money. According to studies, this software collectively help business owners to save around $60 billon a year. Because you can install it from internet using any browser or you can install it by typing a command in the command prompt.
2. This source code is created by skillful and talented people. So the software installed by you from this code will be definately bugg free.
3. It is highly reliable. These softwares are developed by skillful and talented experts who do their best to create high-quality programs. They work on by tens or hundreds of prople, which means there are numerous eyes that can monitor for the presence of bugs and many pairs of hands that can fix these defects in short period of time.
4. It helps you to become more flexible to learn and use it because its documentation is available.

• Disadvantage of installing software from source code :

1. It is vulnerable to malicious users. As it is open source many people have access to its source code, but not all of them have good intentions. While a lot people utilize their access to spot defects and make improvements to the program, others use this privilege to exploit the products vulnerabilities and create bugs that can infect hardware, steal identities or just annoy other users. These These rarely happens with commercially produced software since the company who make them have stringent quality control processes and ensure that the program is almost perfect when released to the market.
2. Might not be as user-friendly as commercial versions.  There are several programs which are created mainly to cater to the developers wishes and bring his ideas to life. As a result, not much attention is given to user interface of software thus making it difficult to use for the non-technical person.
3. Don't come with extensive support. Those who favor commercially produced programs say that these software give them piece of mind. After all since they know exactly who has designed, created and distributed the product they have the clear idea of who they can hold liable if the program doesn't work properly or cause damage to their hardware. This isn't exactly the case for open source software. Since it is developed by numerous people user exactly don't have a specific person or company they can point to.

• Advantage of installing pre-packaged software :

1. Packaged software is a collection of programs that performs similar functions or have similar features. For example Microsoft office includes multiple applications such as Excel, Word and PowerPoint. So purchasing packaged software is often cheaper than purchasing than purchasing each software program separately.
2. Packaged software solutions are designed for both horizontal and vertical markets.
3. Packaged software tend to be far more configurable than custom developed software. In other words they can accommodate changes by adjusting table value to a far greater degrees.
4. Package environments often come with capabilities that a customer does not to use immediately but are there for future exploitation as and when required.
5. A packages software can be implemented in significantly less time than custom applications and often at substantially less cost.

• Disadvantage of installing pre-packaged software :

1. Packages software solutions can be highly complex and usually include many features that you will never use.
2. Given the software tends to be large and complicated it may take a long time to learn properly.
3. You may also have to alter the way you work in order to fit in with the way that the software has been designed.
4. The same system if bought by your competitor it is very difficult to gain any competitive advantage from its use.