Open Source software has many advantages over standard licensed software applications apart from simply price. These can be summarized as:

• Reliability
• Design
• Avoid the 'Monopoly Supplier'
• A Common Infrastructure

Reliability

The very nature of open source software means that thousands of eyes pore over the code rather than a small team of programmers. This makes it more likely that problems will be found, leading to more bulletproof code. Open Elms does thousands of hours of checking before issuing a revision of its code on our website, which in turn has been checked by the Open Elms contributors.

Design

In the same way the design of the system is open to thousands of ideas rather than the focused approach of a single project team. As a result 'unseen' functionality is immediately built into Open Elms, which users normally have to wait several versions before seeing in purchased software. The inclusion of detailed profiling, permission levels and the optional task assessment module is evidence of this.

Please note that this software is aimed squarely at the business community and not the educational establishments as with other open source Learning Management Systems. This means that Open Elms is focused in its approach and not cluttered with unnecessary collaborative learning tools seen in open source Learning Management Systems.

Avoid the 'Monopoly Supplier'

With proprietary software one of the disadvantages is that support and development work needs to be carried out by the supplier. This leaves the client at the mercy of the company's good will not to charge exorbitant customization costs or ever-increasing license fees.

The great advantage of open source provides a company the opportunity to maintain the code themselves, should the need arise, or to contract with someone else to move the code forward in directions they require. Access to source code therefore provides flexibility both from financial burden and design constraints.

A Common Infrastructure

The original motivation behind Open Standards such as SCORM was to provide a common language for Learning Management Systems to understand. It therefore makes sense that there should be a common design scheme for Learning Management Systems to adopt. Open source is a great way to spread the design norms adopted by Open Elms far and wide. The code is free, companies can alter it as needed, so it will in turn 'pop-up' in other proprietary software.

Open source guarantees the ubiquitous of the system.