What’s your favorite open source product?
I do a lot of talks about open source software in libraries. I have a set list of open source products that I think librarians would be interested in (not necessarily library specific). I’m wondering what products you all like using. Some biggies on my list are:
- Ubuntu
- Firefox
- Pidgin
What else should I add?
April 21st, 2008 at 8:45 am
I’d include Wordpress and MediaWiki at least.
April 21st, 2008 at 8:49 am
You know I never even thought about blogs and wikis!! I wonder why not! Thanks
April 21st, 2008 at 10:05 am
On the server side I like Drupal, Greenstone, WordPress, MediaWiki, and of course the whole LAMP thing.
On the the desktop, I use Ubuntu, Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, GIMP, Pidgin, VLC, and Audacity.
April 21st, 2008 at 10:26 am
Glen, excuse my ignorance - but I have yet to find anything on the GIMP site that says it’s open source - that’s the only thing stopping me from including it in my presentation. I had all the others except for Audacity!
April 21st, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Wow, Glen has my spectrum pretty well covered.
Nicole, GIMP offers source code on its download page: http://www.gimp.org/downloads/
April 21st, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Its free software (its a GNU project) you won’t see the words open source as thats not a term free software proponents use.
” Where do I get it?
Most (if not all) Linux distributions will support GIMP through their package management systems and may even come with GIMP preinstalled. You can follow links to Linux and UNIX, Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS X for the latest binaries. Of course, this is free software so the source code is available to, along with instruction on how to compile it.”
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html <– for what is meant by free software.
Its licensed under the GPL
April 21st, 2008 at 5:36 pm
It is a rather indirect reference. On top it mentions that GIMP is for “GNU Image Manipulation Program” GNU (http://www.gnu.org/) is supported by the Free Software Foundation. All the Gn software is under their umbrella such as the Gnome interface for Linux.
On the desktop there’s always good ol’ OpenOffice.
On the server side, the newly release Omeka digital projects software is showing real promise. I use Textpattern for our library’s website.
April 21st, 2008 at 7:44 pm
http://www.winlibre.com/en/index.php has several open source software options for those stuck in a Windows environment.
Nicole: From the Gimp site: GIMP is Free Software and a part of the GNU Project. In the free software world, there is generally no distinction between users and developers. As in a friendly neighbourhood, everybody pitches in to help their neighbors. Please consider the time you give in assistance to others as payment. Sure sounds like open source to me.
For those on the Mac OS X side looking for open source software:
http://www.opensourcemac.org/
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:57 am
The Gimp is the GNU Image Manipulation Program and is released under the GPL which specifies that the source code be readily accessible. More information is found under the faq page http://www.gimp.org/docs/userfaq.html#Where
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:12 am
Well, Debian is the biggest piece of OSS that I use.
Otherwise I would add Inkscape, Scribus, eXe and ClamAV.
GIMP:
http://www.gimp.org/about/
http://www.gimp.org/about/COPYING
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:30 am
Nicole -
One of my current favorites is Untangle (www.untangle.com). Not only does it provide a great deal of functionality but it has several other meta- attributes that I am hoping show the future direction of many FOSS projects. These include:
1) A really visually spectacular and easy user interface.
2) A quite friendly and stable install process from their ISO image.
3) Free support via forums and an option for phone support for a subscription fee with a ‘real company’ answering the phone.
I know for a lot of librarians the ‘F-Word’ refers to filtering so they might miss Untangle but they might want to give it another look since filtering is only one part of its offerings - and can easily be shut off!