Open Source
April 29th 2003
I’ve been exploring Sourceforge.net lately — it’s the hub for most of the open-source projects going on anywhere, and it’s a great way to not only distribute, but also get support and programmers who are interested in your project. Even if you’re just a user, Open Source software is some great free stuff. It’s not shareware, not freeware, not even “postcardware,*” It actually belongs to everyone, and anyone can modify it, remake it, redistribute it, do anything with it. And there are literally thousands of open source programs in various levels of development available, and even a few extremely good open-source programming languages that people use to build those programs (Python, PHP, etc). If you’ve never tried open source before, I’ve included some links at the bottom of this post with some of my favorite active projects.
Maybe one of the best reasons to get into open-source is that Microsoft is afraid of it [1] [2]. They say that it’s a “threat to the american way” and “a cancer.” Pretty harsh words, and for good reason. Someday, when Linux becomes just as capable and usable as Windows is today, I just might switch completely. Or, at least, I’ll build myself a system with nothing but Open Source software on it. Now that would be something to be proud of. ::
Cool Open-Source Projects
- Gaim – A very capable Instant Messaging program. Supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, and more.
- FileZilla – FTP Client and Server, with all the features of CuteFTP or WS_FTP, but better!
- Gallery – A web gallery, in use on triswebpage (view).
- StepMania – A Dance-Dance Revolution-like game for PC, Mac, and Linux.
- Savant – A full-featured Win32 web server.
- ZMatrix – A very cool “active desktop” for windows that makes it look like a matrix workstation.
- Browse more open-source software by topic.