Open source usage

It refers to something that can be modified because its design is publicly accessible. Open source software is software whose source code is available for modification or enhancement by anyone. Most open source licenses require software developers to release their source code when they sell software to others, many open source software programmers find it more lucrative to charge users for software services and support rather than for the software itself. This way, their software remains free of charge and they make money helping others install, use, and troubleshoot it.

Implementation of E-Government projects need investments in IT thus, assessment made with respect with these investments for information technology increases interest in the opportunities by open-source software, and increases their potential for their usage in E-Government economically advantageous and relevant.

Few open source providing functions similar to commercial software are

Software Type	Open source Software	Commercial Software
Project Management	Project.net	Microsoft Project
Office Applications	Libre Office / OpenOffice	Microsoft Office
PDF Creation	PDFCreator	Adobe Acrobat
Vector Drawing	Inkscape	Adobe Illustrator
Image & Photo Manipulation	GIMP	Adobe Photoshop
Statistical and Graphical Analysis	GNU R	SAS, SPSS
Programming & IDE	Eclipse	Microsoft Visual Studio
Data Mining	RapidMiner	SPSS, Excel
Backup	Amanda, Bacula	NetVault Backup
Server	RedHat Enterprise Linux, CentOs Linux	Microsoft Windows Server
Desktop Operating System	RedHat Linux, CentOs Linux	Windows XP, Vista, 7
Business Intelligence (BI)	Pentaho BI Suite	Oracle, IBM, Informatica
E-mail Server	Zimbra	Microsoft Exchange Server
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)	OpenERP, Openbravo	SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, SAP
Web Application Development	PHP	Microsoft ASP.Net
Relational Databases	MySQL	Microsoft SQL Server
Web Server	Apache web server	Microsoft IIS