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Free software distribution. (Discussion)

jza said – Thu, 22 May 2008 18:31:21 -0000 ( Edit Link )

Since Free software most commonly doesn’t belong to a company. The distribution varies from the one consumers are used to.

Commercial software is distributed by either CD on stores or at their company website through a direct download. Other mediums might be through a software virtual software distributor, or magazines like download.com that distribute commercial software or demos.

Free software doesn’t have a company and more than likely doesn’t even have a budget to payoff magazines or distributors. So you wont see Firefox or Linux at your local wall-mart anytime soon.

However Free software IS distributed from their project website and the way is distriubuted is through non-commercial distributors. Sometimes University servers serve for this goal.

When you download free software you are asked which server you want to download it from. The answer is usually which is the closest server to your location or which one has the most bandwith.

Recently other ways to get free software is through P2P technology, such as Bittorrent.

Which other ways could free software take on distributing it’s software?

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Author: jza; Authority 264

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wmoxam said – Thu, 22 May 2008 18:59:42 -0000 ( Flag Edit Mark / Unmark Best Link )

Most free operating systems have packaging systems which will automatically download and install software for you. On systems such as Ubuntu, you can browse through a huge list of free software, and install it in two clicks. It’s very different than the distribution model used by Windows and OSX, but once you get used to it, you wonder how you ever lived without it.

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