Over the years the idea of open source software has gained momentum and as developers have realised that by harnessing the creative power of everyone fantastic software can be developed.

So what is open source software - Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in.

There has been a number of very successful projects that if one takes time to look at them could prove cost cutting. Take a number of shopping carts that are available in Fantastico which comes pre installed with all our hosting packages. There are 3 ecommerce scripts amoung a number of many other open source scripts which are available at your disposal and can be installed easily.

As many people contribute the software is greatly improved and you find that initially people where worried about security features in such software but as the years have gone by they have proved to be just as robust as commercialy distributed scripts.
A look at the vast number of open source scripts available can help a small business cut cost in terms of initial development as well as in the day to day running of the business.Examples of open source scripts include :

• joomla
• mambo
• phpnuke
• droopal
• phpauction
• cubecart

to mention a few