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Find Free, Open Apps at Open Source Living
Posted by Kevin Purdy at 2:00 AM on December 28, 2007
There are countless arguments for using open source applications, but one of the strongest is the benefit of learning how to just one app and using it across Windows, Mac or Linux systems. Web site directory Open Source Living helps you find just the programs you're looking for and points you to where you can get them for free. It's not an extensive, all-in-one directory, but it seems to narrow its choices based on quality and widespread acceptance. And while not every application listed at Open Source Living is entirely cross-platform, a good deal of them are. For more free or open source applications, check out a Windows and Mac free software bonanza.
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
photoben
Posted 8:39 AM 27/12/07
@therevan: 'twas just kidding!! Oh, I refreshed the page, deleted the cache, word still missing...
photoben
therevan
Posted 8:36 AM 27/12/07
@martinmcd, @photoben: Nope, MartinMCD was right -- I just left a word out. Fixed!
therevan
photoben
Posted 8:34 AM 27/12/07
@martinmcd: He means you're justifying one app. :-P
photoben
martinmcd
Posted 8:22 AM 27/12/07
You might want to run a grammar check on that 1st sentence.
martinmcd
anthonylitz
Posted 9:55 AM 27/12/07
I just found this website yesterday, via Digg I think...
It seems to be bookmark'able ;)
anthonylitz
photoben
Posted 8:43 AM 27/12/07
Ah! - It's fixed now, and it also sounds better. Nice job!
photoben
AltReality
Posted 10:38 AM 27/12/07
As indicated in the DIGG comments for this site...several of the apps listed are simply Free, but not Open Source. As the Lifehacker community should know already..these terms do not mean the same thing.
Just a heads up.
AltReality
nikoPSK
Posted 10:36 AM 27/12/07
yay, thanks LH
nikoPSK
OriginalGabriel
Posted 11:12 AM 27/12/07
@AltReality: yeah, i was just going to state that ... just a quick glance and it seems most of these apps aren't open source
OriginalGabriel
OriginalGabriel
Posted 1:10 PM 27/12/07
I emailed the site manager regarding the difference between "free" and "open source" and he wrote back stating that he's working over a new version of the site that will be Open Source only.
[osliving.com]
OriginalGabriel
nameauser
Posted 3:36 PM 27/12/07
anyone heard of [www.osalt.com] ? it does the same thing
nameauser
mrosedal
Posted 8:17 PM 27/12/07
I would recommend osalt as well...they are focused on opensource...they aren't exhaustive either, but who could be?
mrosedal
Spaceboy
Posted 5:58 AM 28/12/07
I forgot to add a couple of really good ones: Processing (www.processing.org), a programming language with C like syntax that outputs Java code. Great for writing internet apps that are graphics-centered.
And speaking of programming languages, Scilab instead of Matlab for scientific programming. It's very stable and converting code between scilab and matlab is extremely easy, the syntax is almost the same.
But these latest two are not as mainstream as the first five I posted.
Spaceboy
Spaceboy
Posted 5:50 AM 28/12/07
@Spaceboy:
ooops...more like 5 examples :)
Spaceboy
Spaceboy
Posted 5:50 AM 28/12/07
I have been pretty enthusiastic about free and open source apps, but I don't think they are yet at the level where they surpass payware or firmware.
These are three examples of free apps I use or have used:
rockbox for my sansa e250 instead of the default firmware. Great, love the games and apps, but setting up the playlist is not very intuitive, and it is a battery hog even when all it does is play music.
Apparently this problem only manifests itself with Sansa players, but that fact is not really helping me.
Jlime (opie linux) on my Jornada 680. Could not get my wireless card to work with it, nor the PCMCIA-CF adapter. Gave up on it.
Flight Gear flight simulator: this was a while ago, while it was still pre v1.0. When you can buy Microsoft FS2004 for a few bucks, with all the free addons and such, it's simply not worth it to mess around with FGFS. If they developed a true API, I would be all over it though.
Puppy Linux. I installed this on an old laptop, and although it took a while, it seems to work great now, including an old wireless card which I thought I had no use for. Problem is, that card works with a totally unrelated driver that came with the distro. Fortunately somebody had posted that info in a forum, and so I was able to get wireless on the laptop.
Gimp: now that's a great one, for me, very stable,but I don't use it that often and I am not into graphics that much, so I don't know if it can truely replace photoshop for a serious user.
Open Office: I would totally use that instead of MS Office, save they don't have VBA yet. I heard there is a 'Novell'version coming out which has VBA functionality, I might give that a try once Office 2003 gets too old.
Spaceboy