Yet information systems are difficult to commission, purchase, and evaluate, and the results not always good. As computer hardware becomes an ever cheaper commodity with ever increasing power, it is clear that software is the rate limiting step in system develop. A lot of its cost lies in planning, implementing, and monitoring and enforcing exchanges between the parties involved, who might be, for example, a hospital wanting to buy an information system and a system supplier. Such exchanges have high transaction costs. Even when a system is successfully commissioned, the costs can remain high.
Free software differs from proprietary software in several important respects.
This virtuous cycle of development has, over the past decade, created a common. Free software facilitates the provision of common software components. There are other advantages. It can be maintained even if the developers who originally produced the software are no longer available. Much better instead to invest time on a system licensed under the General Public License that will always be free.