Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Proprietary Software shopping experience:
1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Proprietary Software offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Proprietary Software at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.
2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about
3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Proprietary Software? Wrong! If the Proprietary Software is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.
4. Questions - Got a question about Proprietary Software then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....
5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Proprietary Software? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Proprietary Software and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.
6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Proprietary Software wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.
7. Feedback - happy with your Proprietary Software then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.
8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Proprietary Software site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site
9. Contact - got a question about Proprietary Software, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.
10. Payment - ready to pay for your Proprietary Software, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.
Proprietary software (also called
non-free software or
closed-source software) is
software with restrictions on using, copying and modifying as enforced by the proprietary. Restrictions on use, modification and copying are achieved by either legal or technical means and sometimes both. Technical means include releasing machine-readable
binaries to users and withholding the human-readable
source code. Legal means can involve software license, copyright, and
patent law.
Details
Exclusive legal rights to software by a proprietor are not required for software to be proprietary, since
public domain software and software under a permissive license can become proprietary software by distributing compiler versions of the program without making the source code available. Proprietary software's restrictions make it an antonym of free software. For free software, the same laws used by proprietary software are used to preserve the freedoms to use, copy and modify the software. Proprietary software includes
freeware and shareware. It can be commercial software, but public domain and all other free software can also be sold for a price and be used for commercial purposes.
According to the
Free Software Foundation (FSF), proprietary software is any software that does not meet its definitions of free software or
semi-free software. The term's literal legal meaning covers software that has an owner who exercises control over what users can do with it. FSF's
GNU General Public License asserts that the restrictions of free software offer computer users freedom while the restrictions of other software benefit only the owner and are unethical.
Proponents of proprietary software, like
Microsoft, argue that innovation is driven more quickly when it is lucrative. They claim that the best way to ensure this motivation is to tie revenue to innovation. The proprietor uses a temporary
monopoly with
copyright and sometimes software patents that makes the software more expensive. A dependency on future versions and upgrades can make the monopoly permanent without the emergence of a competing software package, a situation termed "vendor lock-in". Proprietary software is said to create greater commercial activity over free software, especially in regard to market revenues.
A variety of activation or licence management systems are emerging in proprietary software that prevent copyright infringement and determine how the software is used. If the proprietor ceases to exist or for any other reason does not provide keys for activation or to unlock discontinued products, legitimate users can be unable to re-activate existing software or use other hardware.
If the proprietor of a software package should cease to exist, or decide to cease or limit production or support for a proprietary software package, recipients and users of the package can be left at a disadvantage and have no recourse if problems are found with the software. Proprietors can fail to improve and support software because of business problems. Companies also end their support for a product for business and organizational planning purposes. The consequence is also tied to enticing more to upgrade and pay for newer versions.
Alternative terms for proprietary software
The term non-free software is used interchangeably, roughly as often by the
free software movement. FSF founder Richard Stallman sometimes uses the term "user subjugating software", while Eben Moglen sometimes talks of "unfree software". The term "non-free" is often used by Debian developers to describe any software whose license does not comply with Debian Free Software Guidelines, and use "proprietary software" specifically for non-free software that provide no source code. The
Open Source Initiative prefers the term "
closed source software". Proprietary software vendors usually refer to their own software as commercial software.
Also, proprietary software can also be used to refer to a software utility that solves a general problem but was developed as part of a non-free application. This utility is thus not available as a separate unit nor is it free (you need to purchase the whole package to use it).
Examples
Well known examples of proprietary software include Microsoft Windows, RealPlayer,
iTunes, Adobe Photoshop,
Mac OS X (although the underlying
Darwin (operating system) system is free software), WinZip and some versions of UNIX.
Some
free software packages are also simultaneously available under proprietary terms. Examples include
MySQL,
Sendmail and
Secure Shell. The original copyright holders for a work of free software, even
copyleft free software, can use dual-licensing to allow themselves or others to redistribute proprietary versions. Non-copyleft free software, or software distributed under a permissive free software licence, allows anyone to make proprietary redistributions.
Some proprietary software comes with source code or provides offers to the source code. Users are free to use and even study and modify the software in these cases, but are restricted by either licenses or non-disclosure agreements from redistributing modifications or sharing the software. Examples include
Pine (e-mail client), the Microsoft Shared source license program, and certain proprietary implementations of Secure Shell.
Shareware, like
freeware, is proprietary software available at zero price, but differs in that it is free only for a trial period, after which some restriction is imposed or it is completely disabled.
Proprietary software which is no longer marketed by its owner and is used without permission by users is called
abandonware and may include source code. Some abandonware has its source code placed in the public domain either by its author or copyright holder and is therefore free software, not proprietary software.
Software hoarding
"Software hoarding" is a pejorative term for the act of keeping
software proprietary software. This can cause interoperability problems and can lead to
vendor lock-in, and can restrict the free sharing of knowledge. The practice is legal in most countries unless restricted by copyright or license. Some proponents of free software consider the practice immoral, and it was the impetus for the creation of "
copyleft" licenses.
The term was coined by
Richard Stallman in 1984 as a derisive critique of Symbolics, a company he actively opposed. While employed at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stallman had worked on a Lisp programming language Interpreter (computing) as part of the Lisp machine project. An agreement between MIT and Symbolics allowed Symbolics to use the code, and required the company to let the university review changes to it, but did not give the university rights to the changes themselves.
See also
References
Proprietary software (also called
non-free software or
closed-source software) is software with restrictions on using, copying and modifying as enforced by the
proprietary. Restrictions on use, modification and copying are achieved by either legal or technical means and sometimes both. Technical means include releasing machine-readable
binaries to users and withholding the human-readable
source code. Legal means can involve
software license, copyright, and
patent law.
Details
Exclusive legal rights to software by a proprietor are not required for software to be proprietary, since
public domain software and software under a permissive license can become proprietary software by distributing
compiler versions of the program without making the source code available. Proprietary software's restrictions make it an antonym of free software. For free software, the same laws used by proprietary software are used to preserve the freedoms to use, copy and modify the software. Proprietary software includes
freeware and shareware. It can be commercial software, but public domain and all other free software can also be sold for a price and be used for commercial purposes.
According to the
Free Software Foundation (FSF), proprietary software is any software that does not meet its definitions of free software or semi-free software. The term's literal legal meaning covers software that has an owner who exercises control over what users can do with it. FSF's
GNU General Public License asserts that the restrictions of free software offer computer users freedom while the restrictions of other software benefit only the owner and are unethical.
Proponents of proprietary software, like Microsoft, argue that innovation is driven more quickly when it is lucrative. They claim that the best way to ensure this motivation is to tie revenue to innovation. The proprietor uses a temporary
monopoly with copyright and sometimes software patents that makes the software more expensive. A dependency on future versions and upgrades can make the monopoly permanent without the emergence of a competing software package, a situation termed "vendor lock-in". Proprietary software is said to create greater commercial activity over free software, especially in regard to market revenues.
A variety of activation or
licence management systems are emerging in proprietary software that prevent copyright infringement and determine how the software is used. If the proprietor ceases to exist or for any other reason does not provide keys for activation or to unlock discontinued products, legitimate users can be unable to re-activate existing software or use other hardware.
If the proprietor of a software package should cease to exist, or decide to cease or limit production or support for a proprietary software package, recipients and users of the package can be left at a disadvantage and have no recourse if problems are found with the software. Proprietors can fail to improve and support software because of business problems. Companies also end their support for a product for business and organizational planning purposes. The consequence is also tied to enticing more to upgrade and pay for newer versions.
Alternative terms for proprietary software
The term non-free software is used interchangeably, roughly as often by the free software movement. FSF founder Richard Stallman sometimes uses the term "user subjugating software", while Eben Moglen sometimes talks of "unfree software". The term "non-free" is often used by Debian developers to describe any software whose license does not comply with
Debian Free Software Guidelines, and use "proprietary software" specifically for non-free software that provide no source code. The
Open Source Initiative prefers the term "closed source software". Proprietary software vendors usually refer to their own software as
commercial software.
Also, proprietary software can also be used to refer to a software utility that solves a general problem but was developed as part of a non-free application. This utility is thus not available as a separate unit nor is it free (you need to purchase the whole package to use it).
Examples
Well known examples of proprietary software include
Microsoft Windows, RealPlayer,
iTunes, Adobe Photoshop, Mac OS X (although the underlying
Darwin (operating system) system is free software),
WinZip and some versions of
UNIX.
Some free software packages are also simultaneously available under proprietary terms. Examples include MySQL,
Sendmail and
Secure Shell. The original copyright holders for a work of free software, even copyleft free software, can use dual-licensing to allow themselves or others to redistribute proprietary versions. Non-copyleft free software, or software distributed under a
permissive free software licence, allows anyone to make proprietary redistributions.
Some proprietary software comes with source code or provides offers to the source code. Users are free to use and even study and modify the software in these cases, but are restricted by either licenses or
non-disclosure agreements from redistributing modifications or sharing the software. Examples include Pine (e-mail client), the
Microsoft Shared source license program, and certain proprietary implementations of Secure Shell.
Shareware, like
freeware, is proprietary software available at zero price, but differs in that it is free only for a trial period, after which some restriction is imposed or it is completely disabled.
Proprietary software which is no longer marketed by its owner and is used without permission by users is called abandonware and may include source code. Some abandonware has its source code placed in the
public domain either by its author or copyright holder and is therefore free software, not proprietary software.
Software hoarding
"Software hoarding" is a pejorative term for the act of keeping
software proprietary software. This can cause interoperability problems and can lead to
vendor lock-in, and can restrict the free sharing of knowledge. The practice is legal in most countries unless restricted by copyright or license. Some proponents of free software consider the practice immoral, and it was the impetus for the creation of "copyleft" licenses.
The term was coined by
Richard Stallman in 1984 as a derisive critique of Symbolics, a company he actively opposed. While employed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stallman had worked on a Lisp programming language
Interpreter (computing) as part of the Lisp machine project. An agreement between MIT and Symbolics allowed Symbolics to use the code, and required the company to let the university review changes to it, but did not give the university rights to the changes themselves.
See also
- Glossary of legal terms in technology
- Proprietary hardware
References
Proprietary software - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Proprietary software is any computer software with restrictions on use or private modification, or with restrictions judged to be excessive on copying or publishing of modified or ...
Proprietary Software Does Not Scale
Proprietary Software Does Not Scale. I’ve been thinking this for a while: if you’re using software with a per-CPU license you can’t just roll it out as an image across a ...
BBC NEWS | Technology | It's not the Gates, it's the bars
They are systematic symptoms of a deeper wrong which most people don't recognise: proprietary software. Microsoft's software is distributed under licenses that keep users ...
proprietary software Content at ZDNet UK
News Articles, Whitepapers, Downloads, Opinion and Resources relating to proprietary software ... Proprietary Software: A Defence. Talkback Proprietary software WAS an extremely ...
Command Line Warriors - Are your Firefox extensions proprietary ...
Taking control of your own technology. An open site about command-line computing, Linux, Python, Gentoo, Ubuntu, Blogs and Ethics ... In the last-post, I went through the most ...
Categories of Free and Non-Free Software - GNU Project - Free Software ...
Categories of Free and Non-Free Software. Also note Confusing Words which You Might Want to Avoid. This diagram by Chao-Kuei explains the different categories of software.
matthewbarr.co.uk | docs | Open source vs proprietary software: a ...
Open source versus proprietary software: a discussion. It may be argued that open source software has, in recent years, begun to move into the mainstream marketplace previously ...
Open source and proprietary software | Business Link
The implications of using open source and proprietary software in your business ... Computer software: the basics Open source and proprietary software. Proprietary software is ...
Open Research Online - Proprietary software tools as learning aids
Proprietary software tools, though not designed for educational use, have considerable educational potential. This paper describes, as case studies, the use of proprietary graphics ...
Proprietary software
For beginners, or users who just want easy to use "off the shelf" data acquisition software, DAX and DAQCreator allow data to be taken without any programming experience.
