by Thelma Vance

Created on: July 30, 2008

Many thanks to the Authors at CPAN.org! This is a "free" download site that provides perl Modules to the Software Community. Everyone that has used the site raves about it.

The WHY of it is simple. This is site for Students to drop their project and allow others to issue bug reports against their Modules. This review process has qualified perl code as acceptable for use in FDA sponsored Projects and DoD (Department of Defense) has also qualified perl code for their projects as well. ISO 9001 certification is not far away.

When one looks at L.A.M.P (Linux, Apache, MySQL Perl/PHP/Python) we see REAL value. The deployment time on mission critical Projects has been reduced through the use of this "free" software. One of the NASA Projects, the Mars Rovers, have been in constant service for the last few YEARS. The Project was only to last for 90 days. WOW!

Free software from Source Forge has kept MANY software Engineers employed!

The Authors of this Free Software do it as a living Resume. It works! This shows technical competence and gives the Employer a feeling for how the Software Community view the code. While CPAN.org focuses on perl Source Forge takes care of supplying Java, C and C++ code segments. It is unknown just how big of an effect this code has had on the Software Community but without these sites there just would not be nearly as much software in Production and some Products would never have been developed due to the cost to Engineer code from scratch.

These sites are supported much the same way that Public Broadcasting get their Operating Capital, from donations. Contributors to these sites assist many Start Up companies and Schools. There is no doubt that the service these sites have provided over many years has truly advance the software art far beyond imagination.

Some Companies have provided mirror sites for the distribution of this "free software". These Companies write off the cost to Marketing in that the site is Branded with the Companies' logo and URL. Everyone WINS!

There just is no more important issue in the world of Software Engineering than the "free software" web sites.

It is interesting to note that every Country that employs Software Engineers have at least one Author supplying code to these portals.

Be very grateful that there is still "free software" and help where you can. It means a lot to us all!

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