The Open Source Initiative began with the publication of Eric Raymond's paper The Cathedral and the Bazaar in 1997. To really gain an understanding of the Internet and associated information technologies it is a must read.It is an offshoot of the free software movement that advocates open source software as an alternative label for free software, primarily on pragmatic rather than philosophical grounds.
Even before that Richard Stallman wrote the GNU manifesto. GNU
is a recursive acronym for GNU's Not Unix. It's a little play on
words that symbolizes the playful/clever attitude of early
hackers. Most everyone involved with computers today is familiar
with the word Linux. The proper name is actually gnu linux. Linus Torvalds came up with a working
model before Stallman, and used his gnu project as a
springboard. These days Stallman is more occupied with politics
than programming, but at least he started a great thing. As we
all know, Linux has been spreading like wild fire since it's
inception in 1991. A classic example of the bazaar method of
software production. At the last survey Linux made up 60% of the
worlds servers. All of Google's 1,000,000 servers run Linux.
That goes for amazon.com and ebay as well. Maybe they know
something?
The first piece of software on my list is both Free and Open
Source .
Ubuntu (pronounced oo-BOONtoo, is a
computer operating system based on the Debian
Linux distribution and distributed
as free and open source
software. It is named after the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu ("humanity
towards others").[6]
Ubuntu is designed primarily for desktop use, although netbook and server editions exist as well.[7] Web statistics suggest that Ubuntu's share of Linux desktop usage is about 50%,[8][9] and indicate upward-trending usage as a web server.[10] Ubuntu holds an estimated global usage of more than 12 million users,[11] and it is considered byDistroWatch to be the most popular distribution of Linux.[12] (The second-most popular distribution, Linux Mint, is itself a derivative of Ubuntu.)
Ubuntu is sponsored by the UK-based company Canonical Ltd., owned by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth. Canonical generates revenue by selling technical support and services tied to Ubuntu, while the operating system itself is entirely free of charge. A new version of Ubuntu is released every six months and I keep my netbook upgraded constantly.
To ask how many computers in the world run Linux is difficult
to answer. Linux can be installed on a wide variety of computer
hardware, ranging from mobile phones, tablet computers and video
game consoles, to mainframes and supercomputers. Linux is a
leading server operating system, and runs the 10 fastest
supercomputers in the world.Many of the software titles listed
below are included with a standard installation of ubuntu.
OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office
software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations,
graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages
and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an
international open standard format and can also read and write
files from other common office software packages. It can be
downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.
GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely
distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo
retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on
many operating systems, in many languages. (more...)
Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and
editing sounds. I use it to make custom ring tones for my cell
phone. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows,
GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. Learn more about Audacity... Also check
our Wiki and Forum for
more information.
Firefox browser is created by Mozilla, a non-profit
organization whose mission is to promote openness, innovation
and opportunity on the Web.
The web is what you make of it! The web has moved from viewing
to doing. Google Chrome is a fast, simple browser that lets you
make the most of the modern web
VLC - VLC is a free and open source cross-platform
multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files
as well as DVD, Audio CD, VCD, and various streaming protocols.
Rhythmbox is an integrated music management application,
originally inspired by Apple's iTunes. It is free software, designed to work well under
the GNOME Desktop, and based
on the powerful GStreamer media
framework.
K3b was created to be a feature-rich and easy to handle CD
burning application. It consists of basicly three parts:
- The projects:
Projects are created from the file menu and then filled with data to burn. - The Tools:
The tools menu offers different tools like CD copy or DVD formatting. - Context sensitive media actions:
When clicking on the Icon representing a CD/DVD drive K3b will present it's contents and allow some further action. This is for example the way to rip audio CDs.
Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications.Google Inc. purchased the initial developer of the software, Android Inc., in 2005. Android's mobile operating system is based on the Linux kernel. Google and other members of the Open Handset Alliance collaborated on Android's development and release. The Android Open Source Project (AOSP) is tasked with the maintenance and further development of Android. Android was listed as the best-selling smartphone platform world-wide in Q4 2010 by Canalys. Android has a large community of developers writing applications ("apps") that extend the functionality of the devices. There are currently more than 250,000 apps available for Android. Android Market is the online app store run by Google, though apps can also be downloaded from third-party sites. Developers write primarily in the Java programming language, controlling the device via Google-developed Java libraries. The unveiling of the Android distribution on 5 November 2007 was announced with the founding of the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 80 hardware, software, and telecom companies devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices. Google released most of the Android code under the Apache License, a free software and open source license. The Android open-source software stack consists of Java applications running on a Java-based, object-oriented application framework on top of Java core libraries running on a Dalvik virtual machine featuring JIT compilation. Libraries written in C include the surface manager, OpenCore media framework, SQLite relational database management system, OpenGL ES 2.0 3D graphics API, WebKit layout engine, SGL graphics engine, SSL, and Bionic libc.
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