I am an open source fanatic and have been for many years. How impressive is a movement willing to share their code and software with everyone else (often for free) to be used for and/or adapted to specific needs or tastes. After spending so many years being both locked in and out of proprietary code, it’s refreshing to have access to unlimited possibilities. Such freedom does not stifle and has instead fostered innovation.
During the early nineties I was obsessively immersed in “how to” textbooks about web development and design, various software applications and programming languages. I was determined to learn everything I could so that I could carve out my own corner of this thing called the Web and utilize it’s related technologies. For us non-programmer types who absolutely love technology and want to learn all we can about it, working with oodles of free open source applications has afforded us the opportunity to dabble with code, tweak to our tastes, and learn along the way.
During the years since, I have created my share of Websites and would not have learned to do so quickly or easily without access to open source Web applications and the supportive and informative “communities” behind them. Having access to such applications gave me the hands on learning experience necessary to understand and conceptualize how they work, their uses, limitations, and more.
Because I’m such a fan and have used a wide range of open source applications over the years, I decided to share my list of favorites (your mileage may ultimately vary). For personal or business, it really doesn’t matter, you can equip your PC, laptop, mobile phone, and web site with only open source software and have a fully functional and diverse set of tools at your disposal.
Core apps for any user (desktop):
- OpenOffice.org – the open source alternative to Microsoft Office
- Firefox – a web browser that, in my opinion, is much better than Internet Explorer (automatically loaded with Windows)
- If you don’t already use Google’s Gmail, Calendar, Docs, etc. and prefer such tools be installed locally versus the Web, Thunderbird for email, Sunbird for calendar, or if you’re feeling a little adventurous, an all-in-one internet application suite called SeaMonkey (Mozilla rocks!) could be your solution
- 7-Zip – an alternative to Winzip and if you don’t want to use the zip application that comes built in to current versions of Windows
- PDFCreator – an Adobe alternative that allows you to create .pdf files
- Clamwin – anti-virus software for Windows
For business (desktop):
- TurboCASH – accounting software
- GnuCash – personal and small-business financial-accounting software
- Ekiga – softphone, videoconferencing and instant messenger application
For business (Web):
- Includes all of the apps mentioned in the geek list below
- eGroupware or phpGroupWare – for a collaborative environment and such tools as email, calendar, address book, CRM, project management, resource management, time sheet, tracker, knowledgebase, and more
- Filezilla – FTP software for transferring files from your local machine to your web site
- WordPress – perhaps my most favorite web app, it offers blog and potential content management system functionality (and it has supporting mobile apps!)
For students:
- GCompris – educational software suite with activities for children aged 2 to 10
- Tux Paint (and other software) – drawing software for children ages 3 to 12 (to inspire creativity)
- Hotchalk – for teachers, students and parents
For artists/creative types (just a sampling):
- Inkscape – open source SVG graphics editor
- GIMP – the image manipulation tool most open source lovers can’t live without
- Paint.NET – a wonderful digital photo and image editing application (used to be open source and distributed under the MIT License, but has been changed to freeware, which is okay because you can still use the software for free)
- Blender – 3D content creation suite
- FreeCAD – general purpose 3D CAD modeler
For the geek in you:
- Apache – the most popular web server
- Unix and Linux (and one of it’s many flavors) – great alternatives to proprietary Windows and Mac OS (Apple) operating systems
- KDE – a complete suite of workspace applications for Unix, Linux and other operating systems
- MySQL – one of the most common open source databases
- PHP – one of the more user friendly scripting languages for the Web
- phpMyAdmin – makes managing MySQL databases much easier
- KOffice Suite – pretty much the equivalent of proprietary Microsoft Office and open source OpenOffice.org
For the mobile/smartphone user:
- My Motorola Droid runs on Google’s Android (open source mobile operating system and platform) and I already have access to Google Sync. Users of other phones and operating systems can take advantage of the Google Sync service as well; click the link for more
- On the open source Android platform there are thousands (and growing) of apps at your disposal
- Funambol – catch the “cloud computing” wave and sync your mobile phone with your other devices (desktop, laptop, etc.)
- OpenSync – with the impressive goal of providing a solution for synchronization of data across all platforms and our electronic toys…er…devices
- Learn more from the Open Source Software for Mobile Phones blog
…and that’s not my entire list. For more open source software, visit the following sources:
- Sourceforge
- Freshmeat
- ListofOpenSourcePrograms (LOOP)
- OpenDisc
- OSSwin Project
- Open Source Alternatives (osalt)
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