True ownership...

One of the things that many people don't seem to really understand, is that open source gives them more control over what happens on their computers.

Not only that, since most of the licenses gives the user to tweak and modify the software that runs on their computers it means that they can make their computer what they want it to do. Not only that, they truly own they computer and the data they have stored in it.

With close source, users give away part of the ownership to the vendor of whatever software they are running on the computer. Most of the time, they have to agree to use it how and on which computers the vendor believes is the best. And, since you can not see the source code, one can not modify to suit the particular needs that the end user might have. The user is at the wimp on whatever functionalities the vendor decided to put on, take out, of the software it makes.

And there is no legal way to add functionalities you need on your own, or to take away those who are useless to you, but get in the way.

Also, if the vendor doesn't like what you are doing with the software it sold you, it has the legal right to make stop since you. Many times, the end user doesn't know that he agree to that when he signed the user agreement.

That makes open source a lot more flexible. It can be adapted to the end user needs with relative ease, and most often than not there is already a solution out there to meet your needs.

The system you use, can be as lean or as heavy as you need to be. Open source really can be made to suit your needs at a much more accessible cost. More importantly, there is a big and vibrant community on which to rely to get answers to most of the problems you may encounter along the way. Odds are you will find someone willing to help you, or at least point you in the right direction to fix your problem.

With open source, you are part of the community that makes the software work. You don't need to know how to code, which it helps. With you point out where the problems are, so they can be fixed you are contributing much to make things better.