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This isn't the first time Apple Music has deleted a users' locally stored music files.

You ran proprietary software on a closed source OS from a vendor that operates sweatshops with suicide netting and, most importantly, has a track record for disrespecting user rights. While I tune up the worlds tinyest violin and get going on my rendition of the Free Software Song, why not take a look at http://distrowatch.com/ for some examples of operating systems that put you in the drivers seat, and https://osalt.com/ for software that doesnt trample your ability to rock out mellow folk sensation Roger Whittaker at four in the morning.

The problem with script alternatives is that they do so many things that any one script can often replace any other script, depending on the context. I doubt if a "cross-reference list" would have much value.

Here are some more options:

Here's a site for open source alternatives: http://www.osalt.com/
This is for Linux alternatives: http://linuxappfinder.com/alte...

I don't know if I've seen this site posted here before, but has anybody checked the Open Source Alternatives site, www.osalt.com? Sure, they're not always totally up-to-date, but the do accept software suggestions if your favourite application is missing from the list...

They also only identify open source alternatives, not freeware alternatives (e.g., Paint.NET is not listed as an alternative to Photoshop, since it is simple freeware now and no longer open source). This can be a good thing or an annoying thing, depending on your goals (I use Paint.NET because it's a helluva program, despite not being OS any longer, and the user base/plugin support is amazing).

From the Dreamweaver page, alternative options include:
Quanta Plus 3.5
Available for: windows mac linux unix java
For quick and effortless web development - Quanta Plus is steadily becoming a worthwhile competitor to the commercial web editors on the market. Quanta Plus's features include multi-document... Read more
Aptana 2
Available for: windows mac linux unix java
Aptana is an html/javascript editor, however, it does not provide any WYSIWYG feature - but it is still an amazing editor with many advanced features. Aptana is intended for people developing dynamic... Read more
Bluefish 1.0
Available for: windows mac linux unix java
Eventhough Bluefish is not a WYSIWYG editor - it is still considered a strong tool, however, mainly for experienced web developers/designers. Has support for unicode - and provides wizards for -... Read more
Mozilla SeaMonkey 2.0
Available for: windows mac linux unix java
SeaMonkey settles all of your internet application needs in own package. Its a web-browser, email and newsgroup client, HTML authoring program and IRC chat client all-in-one. In most areas -... Read more
Amaya 10
Available for: windows mac linux unix java
Amaya, developed by W3C, is a web editor/browser that creates and updates documents directly on your website. W3C (WWW Consortium) needed a framework that could include as many of their technologies... Read more
Nvu 1.0
Available for: windows mac linux unix java
Nvu is a web development system primarily developed for Linux but is now also available for windows and mac. The project aims to be an open source alternative for the major commercial web authoring... Read more
KompoZer 0.7.7
Available for: windows mac linux unix java
Kompozer is an open source web development tool built on NVU. The project strives to fix bugs in the NVU project and added new features to it. Both the HTML editor as well as the CSS editor has so... Read more

That said, there are other ways to contribute to open source without having to code. Being an ambassador by raising awareness (kind of like a meatspace OSALT) and providing support with help is just as valuable as the greatest bug fix check-in.

That's right. If you use FOSS to any degree, it is hypocritical of you to not act an advocate.

To Duradin, who said

So basically the GPL was created specifically to tell people what they cannot do.

In the sense that it says you cannot remove the freedoms specifically granted in the license, the yes, it does. And in the sense that it is a license and you must agree with it and uphold it, then yes it does.

As does every license.

Contributing back takes money and can be counter-productive for the community too - especially if it's introduces lots of buggy or bad code. Someone has to go through all of that.

Sounds like if someone is an idiot they shouldn't contribute anyway. The statement "only idiots don't give back" is inflammatory, but, if you take a step back at it, it's fine: nobody wants their contributions anyway.

That said, there are other ways to contribute to open source without having to code. Being an ambassador by raising awareness (kind of like a meatspace OSALT) and providing support with help is just as valuable as the greatest bug fix check-in.

I'd pay for that.

Vetted OpenSource Apps....oh wait: http://www.osalt.com/

Just sayin.....

Yo Grark

you mean like OSAlt.com ?

http://www.osalt.com/wikidpad http://www.osalt.com/zim I can't vouch for their quality or usefulness, but there's a non-zero chance this post will help you, so...

http://www.osalt.com/wikidpad http://www.osalt.com/zim I can't vouch for their quality or usefulness, but there's a non-zero chance this post will help you, so...

The bad side with Skype is that it seems to be rather bloated these days occupying a rather large amount of memory in our computers. It's the #3 application in memory consumption on my machine. Considering the services it's offering that is a bit high.

More bad sides: Details on the consortium buying Skype:IQT (with precedents) Skype already comes with back door into your system now..
The question is, what will skype in all its bloated glory be capable of after it is taken off eBays hands? At least eBay had the goal of making money off their investment.
Open sourcing the Skype linux client also benefits IQT, since Linux skype users are such a small fraction of the market getting them on side only helps increase the network effect for the closed source skype spy client.

Skype spy client is an extremely poor alternative to an open communication standard with a lively community of compatible talk clients. Unfortunately such a community has not yet materialized. And before you point to SIP clients, please do a little bit of research from "Joe Six pack's" point of view which is: Download and install Skype spy client in three mouse clicks and talk. SIP clients AFAIK are overly complicated to use - and it seems the protocol is built to make sure they stay that way. Sad, just sad.

.

There are only two known FOSS alternatives to Sharepoint but Wiki sites are usually better and faster and in most cases free to use

Your link completely misses out on many other wiki options (mediaWiki, TikiWiki, Drupal, Plone, Joomla... the list is large), and the info is dated (Alfresco has released 3.0 for quite some time).

I would strongly recommend actually doing a good options analysis on alternatives to Sharepoint, and make sure you focus on features you actually need or plan on needing in the near future (in 1-2 years, all new product versions generally increase their feature-set anyway).

I know that Law Firms had a conference to use Sharepoint for Legal Practice Management Software. I wrote an original ASP based Docket Calendar, and Law Firms want to move their Docket Calendars to Sharepoint. I can tell you that when you have a law firm and you want reliability, Microsoft isn't always the best choice. Some law firms still use Wordperfect and other non-MS software because they have found MS software to be low quality in performance and reliability. But the majority of big law firms are hooked on Microsoft for everything as Microsoft bundles software into neat packages for them and provides paid support for everything. The big law firms think that putting everything on Microsoft is a safe bet, but the law firm I worked at went millions of dollars over budget because of support calls, replacing hardware, replacing software, and hiring consultants when Microsoft could not give any answers or solutions to our problems. Back then it was Windows 2000, Office 2000, and Visual BASIC 6.0, and ASP 3.0, but the move to Dotnet only made matters worse. Finally Microsoft is working out the bugs in Dotnet, but in doing so they have created new ones. Sharepoint 3.0 was a nifty program until Microsoft filled it with bloated features that it needs Windows 2008 Server because it won't run on older Windows Servers forcing companies to pay for upgrades to Windows 2008 Server and new server hardware, just like the last time I used Windows Server and Microsoft software in a legal environment.

Keep in mind these are "hidden costs" that do not count many wasted work hours trying to work around the MS bugs in programming, or trying to restore a crashed server or workstation. That expenses can reach record amounts as well as have downtime for the entire firm.

There are only two known FOSS alternatives to Sharepoint but Wiki sites are usually better and faster and in most cases free to use. I tried getting Wiki implemented in my former work places only to be laughed at. But a Wiki search is faster than a Sharepoint search, and a Wiki need not use Windows Server and can run on Linux, *BSD Unix, or Mac OSX or some other platform to save money.

Hi,
Firstly if you're looking for opensource app replacements you can always try www.osalt.com.

Personally I'd try:
Photoshop: GIMP or GIMPShop or Krita
Illustrator: Inkscape or XaraXtreme
InDesign: scribus
Dreamweaver: KompoZer or Aptana or seamonkey or Amaya or href="http://net2.com/nvu/">NVU

I also found this website which might help: www.thefreesuite.com

Here are the relevant OSalt links:
photoshop
illustrator
indesign
dreamweaver

Hi,
Firstly if you're looking for opensource app replacements you can always try www.osalt.com.

Personally I'd try:
Photoshop: GIMP or GIMPShop or Krita
Illustrator: Inkscape or XaraXtreme
InDesign: scribus
Dreamweaver: KompoZer or Aptana or seamonkey or Amaya or href="http://net2.com/nvu/">NVU

I also found this website which might help: www.thefreesuite.com

Here are the relevant OSalt links:
photoshop
illustrator
indesign
dreamweaver

Hi,
Firstly if you're looking for opensource app replacements you can always try www.osalt.com.

Personally I'd try:
Photoshop: GIMP or GIMPShop or Krita
Illustrator: Inkscape or XaraXtreme
InDesign: scribus
Dreamweaver: KompoZer or Aptana or seamonkey or Amaya or href="http://net2.com/nvu/">NVU

I also found this website which might help: www.thefreesuite.com

Here are the relevant OSalt links:
photoshop
illustrator
indesign
dreamweaver

Hi,
Firstly if you're looking for opensource app replacements you can always try www.osalt.com.

Personally I'd try:
Photoshop: GIMP or GIMPShop or Krita
Illustrator: Inkscape or XaraXtreme
InDesign: scribus
Dreamweaver: KompoZer or Aptana or seamonkey or Amaya or href="http://net2.com/nvu/">NVU

I also found this website which might help: www.thefreesuite.com

Here are the relevant OSalt links:
photoshop
illustrator
indesign
dreamweaver

Hi,
Firstly if you're looking for opensource app replacements you can always try www.osalt.com.

Personally I'd try:
Photoshop: GIMP or GIMPShop or Krita
Illustrator: Inkscape or XaraXtreme
InDesign: scribus
Dreamweaver: KompoZer or Aptana or seamonkey or Amaya or href="http://net2.com/nvu/">NVU

I also found this website which might help: www.thefreesuite.com

Here are the relevant OSalt links:
photoshop
illustrator
indesign
dreamweaver

See, this is where the fanboys fall down frothing at the mouth. For starters, I have to be able to use Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.

No, I think this is fanboyism. Though not everyone can, many people are able to use GIMP or CinePaint to replace Photoshop. Actually when I've said before that GIMP was not a drop-in replacement for Photoshop I've gotten a bunch of replies just as sarcastic as yours. I've been wanting to start a photography business and I will try CinePaint to see if it will work for me before I spend money on Photoshop. Actually I did try it on my Mac however the Mac version is not native instead it requires X11 and I wasn't able to get it to work. So I may install Ubuntu on my Mac so I can test CinePaint. For Illustrator I'll try Inkscape first. If I wanted to do desktop publishing, I have no plan to, I'd try Scribus before I got InDesign.

No it may end up I need CS4 because they won't work for me but they do work for plenty of others and I am willing to try this.

Now, I have to use those because all my peers throughout the industry are going to be using those same exact tools.

Peer pressure is no reason you have to use them. Open source software can save in the same file formats and are capable of some of the same things, even if differently, as Adobe products in many cases.

When a firm hires me to do work for them, they expect me to be able to use the defacto tools for the trade.

And you want to work for them? It shouldn't matter to clients what you use as long as you do the job in the tyme specified.

Next up, games.

I don't play games but if I ever do I can go to Yahoo! Games. I did buy some game CDs but that was before 2000.

Development. Sorry, no substitute for XCode on Linux.

I have yet to use XCode on my Mac though I do use Eclipse which is cross platform. Now if I ever try Objective-C I may try XCode but I'd rather program in C/C++. If you look at this thread I do ask another programmer about whether Objective-C is cross platform.

If I'm writing apps for OS X or the iPhone, guess what?, you need OS X and an iPhone simulator.

I don't disagree but as may be concluded from above I want to program cross platform, Linux, OS X, and Windows.

You substitute cranks are all the same. You see some one complain about Linux not having the par software, and hold up a supposed equivalent which (most of the time) not only pales in comparison, but is outright inferior to the defacto standard tool.

And fanboys are all the same, they cry an open source alternative won't work but they fail to try or to say why. If this isn't you, explain exactly why these alternatives will not work.

Falcon

It's hard as hell to make it your only desktop; you'll spend all your time wrangling with WINE. Why bother?

Sounds like somebody hasn't looked for FOSS alternatives to his or her software.

You may wish to check out this page about "Education & Science over at OSalt.com.

It lists science-related open source software, including some previously commented on examples, such as: Octave, Sage, or Scilab.

Enjoy, and good luck!

You may wish to check out this page about "Education & Science over at OSalt.com.

It lists science-related open source software, including some previously commented on examples, such as: Octave, Sage, or Scilab.

Enjoy, and good luck!

You may wish to check out this page about "Education & Science over at OSalt.com.

It lists science-related open source software, including some previously commented on examples, such as: Octave, Sage, or Scilab.

Enjoy, and good luck!

You may wish to check out this page about "Education & Science over at OSalt.com.

It lists science-related open source software, including some previously commented on examples, such as: Octave, Sage, or Scilab.

Enjoy, and good luck!

You may wish to check out this page about "Education & Science over at OSalt.com.

It lists science-related open source software, including some previously commented on examples, such as: Octave, Sage, or Scilab.

Enjoy, and good luck!

I was the sysadmin for an elementary school for one year, then the same for a high school [my alma mater] for 3 years. I ran away because of office politics so severe I could barely do my job. The terrible pay and work conditions didn't help either.

As my final year came to close in spring 2007, my plans for the next year were for the lowest PC in wide use school-wide to be a P4/1.6 with 256 MB RAM, with a smattering of Celerons 1.7, 1.2, and 433 with 128 MB RAM--more than enough for Ubuntu 6.06, the latest LTS at the time.

I thought about converting the whole school to Linux all the damn time. Aside from the political side of it ("This isn't the Microsoft computer I had last year!"), I thought of the F/OSS equivalents to EVERYTHING I was using. Several were easy, but several were not...

Windows 2000 or XP Professional -> Ubuntu LTS

Office 2000 or XP -> OpenOffice.Org

MSIE -> Firefox

TN3270 -> plenty of options

Windows 2000 Server or Server 2003 -> Ubuntu LTS server

Altiris Deployment Solution -> ADS can deploy Linux images and deb/rpm packages, but is not itself F/OSS--and it requires a Windows server. Is there a F/OSS solution out there that can install a small partition similar to WinPE, boot to it, and image--all without having to physically visit the computer to insert a boot volume?

IIS -> Apache

SharePoint -> ???

Exchange server/Outlook -> ???/Evolution

AutoCAD [drafting] -> ???

Genesis School -> A "master database" for student records, class scheduling, attendance, grading, gradebooks, and Web-based frontends to allow administrators to create reports, teachers to do attendance and grading for their students, and students/parents to check their gradebook rows. Moodle?

AsureID Express -> Link to an SQL server holding students' and employees' names, numbers, and pictures--or import pics from a USB camera, and make cards that can be printed with a plastic-card printer.

I've found http://www.osalt.com/, but finding F/OSS alternatives to these situations isn't exactly easy...

http://www.osalt.com/ is a good resource to look up the proprietary program, and find an OSS replacement for it. Also, here's a good list of 50 replacements for various programs http://whdb.com/2008/the-top-50-proprietary-programs-that-drive-you-crazy-and-their-open-source-alternatives/

*Not affiliated, just like the resource.

And now there's even an apt-get style package installation tool to make it extra easy!

http://windows-get.sourceforge.net/

This site will help you find open source replacements for your proprietary software (which is also handy for anyone switching to Linux):

http://www.osalt.com/

If you see something you want that's only available for Linux, no problem, install this and run them right alongside the Windows apps:

http://www.andlinux.org/

On my Windows gaming machines I use all FOSS (except some of the games, drivers and hardware config utilities, and Windows itself of course).

Here is a bunch of links about Computer Ethics from when I was researching about it. The google video link (last one on this list) is particularly interesting. Computer ethics is actually a university research topic! http://www.brook.edu/its/cei/cei_hp.htm http://ethics.csc.ncsu.edu/ http://www.southernct.edu/organizations/rccs/resources/teaching/teaching_mono/moor/moor_definition.html http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-computer/ http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/ProfessionalEthics.html http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/hackers.html http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=4279094 http://cyberethics.cbi.msstate.edu/ http://www.oekonux.org/texts/copykillsmusic.html http://www.progilibre.com/Open-Source-Alternative-ou-fausse-route-_a350.html http://www.osalt.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOSS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License http://creativecommons.org/ http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html http://www.itc.virginia.edu/policy/ethics.html http://www.brook.edu/its/cei/overview/Ten_Commanments_of_Computer_Ethics.htm http://www.acm.org/serving/se/code.htm http://www.ieee.org/portal/site http://video.google.fr/videoplay?docid=-3088012854941915784&q=computer+ethics

Here is a more comprehensive listing (than the cnet list) of open source software and their proprietary counterparts:
Open Source Alternative http://www.osalt.com/

Pricelessware is a fairly good resource for finding free software in general (lot's of propriatary freeware) http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/

freshmeat gets updated daily with lots of OSS. Though it has a Linux bias, there is a LOT of cross platform software available http://freshmeat.net/

SourceForge seems to be updating its list daily now as well. The front page listings are much smaller than freshmeat however http://sourceforge.net/

When deciding on what OSS to use, I often check the start date of the project and see if it is still actively being developed. The age of a project and developer involvement is a fairly good indicator of the quality of the software (i.e. you know bugs are constantly being fixed, and improvements made). There is no real reason for me to even think of buying most proprietary software much less downloading warez. There is still a lack of quality OSS games compared to the commercial market, but even this is changing (slowly). I'm still waiting for some of the more advanced and interesting looking games to get out of Alfa or beta stage.

http://www.osalt.com/ has been doing this for quite a while now...

If you don't like a product or service of some vendor; don't buy it.

Visio Alternatives

Microsoft Office Alternatives

Next question?

If you don't like a product or service of some vendor; don't buy it.

Visio Alternatives

Microsoft Office Alternatives

Next question?

I have been on the board of the OSI for more than 5 years, and until last year it was fairly easy for us to police the term open source: once every 2-3 months we'd receive notice that some company or another was advertising that their software was "open source" when the license was not approved by the OSI board and, upon inspection, was clearly not open source. [...] Most of the time they would say "Oops! Thanks for letting us know--we'll promote our software in some other way." And they did, until last year.

But what about Scilab, which on its home page prominently claims to be The open source platform for numerical computation (and has been doing so for years)? Scilab clearly does not qualify for the (widely agreed-upon) OSI definition of "open source", because the license prohibits commercial redistribution of modified versions. And yet I've never heard of an OSI campaign to pressure Scilab to either change its license or stop calling itself "open source". As a result, there are many examples of people who have confused Scilab's license with the usual definition of "open source".

I might suggest that for this, and all similar problems, you check out: http://www.osalt.com/ It's a website with Open Source alternatives to common software. Great stuff.

The site Open Source alternative may be of some help here. It lists open source alternatives to many commercial pieces of software. In this case:

Photoshop > Paint.NET
Illustrator > Inkscape
Acrobat > PDF Creator
Flash > Open Laszlo
Dreamweaver > Nvu...or a good text editor
and so on. I urge everybody to check it out though if you're looking for some more bits of software to play with.

The site Open Source alternative may be of some help here. It lists open source alternatives to many commercial pieces of software. In this case:

Photoshop > Paint.NET
Illustrator > Inkscape
Acrobat > PDF Creator
Flash > Open Laszlo
Dreamweaver > Nvu...or a good text editor
and so on. I urge everybody to check it out though if you're looking for some more bits of software to play with.

The site Open Source alternative may be of some help here. It lists open source alternatives to many commercial pieces of software. In this case:

Photoshop > Paint.NET
Illustrator > Inkscape
Acrobat > PDF Creator
Flash > Open Laszlo
Dreamweaver > Nvu...or a good text editor
and so on. I urge everybody to check it out though if you're looking for some more bits of software to play with.

The site Open Source alternative may be of some help here. It lists open source alternatives to many commercial pieces of software. In this case:

Photoshop > Paint.NET
Illustrator > Inkscape
Acrobat > PDF Creator
Flash > Open Laszlo
Dreamweaver > Nvu...or a good text editor
and so on. I urge everybody to check it out though if you're looking for some more bits of software to play with.

The site Open Source alternative may be of some help here. It lists open source alternatives to many commercial pieces of software. In this case:

Photoshop > Paint.NET
Illustrator > Inkscape
Acrobat > PDF Creator
Flash > Open Laszlo
Dreamweaver > Nvu...or a good text editor
and so on. I urge everybody to check it out though if you're looking for some more bits of software to play with.

The site Open Source alternative may be of some help here. It lists open source alternatives to many commercial pieces of software. In this case:

Photoshop > Paint.NET
Illustrator > Inkscape
Acrobat > PDF Creator
Flash > Open Laszlo
Dreamweaver > Nvu...or a good text editor
and so on. I urge everybody to check it out though if you're looking for some more bits of software to play with.

The site Open Source alternative may be of some help here. It lists open source alternatives to many commercial pieces of software. In this case:

Photoshop > Paint.NET
Illustrator > Inkscape
Acrobat > PDF Creator
Flash > Open Laszlo
Dreamweaver > Nvu...or a good text editor
and so on. I urge everybody to check it out though if you're looking for some more bits of software to play with.

The site Open Source alternative may be of some help here. It lists open source alternatives to many commercial pieces of software. In this case:

Photoshop > Paint.NET
Illustrator > Inkscape
Acrobat > PDF Creator
Flash > Open Laszlo
Dreamweaver > Nvu...or a good text editor
and so on. I urge everybody to check it out though if you're looking for some more bits of software to play with.

The site Open Source alternative may be of some help here. It lists open source alternatives to many commercial pieces of software. In this case:

Photoshop > Paint.NET
Illustrator > Inkscape
Acrobat > PDF Creator
Flash > Open Laszlo
Dreamweaver > Nvu...or a good text editor
and so on. I urge everybody to check it out though if you're looking for some more bits of software to play with.

The site Open Source alternative may be of some help here. It lists open source alternatives to many commercial pieces of software. In this case:

Photoshop > Paint.NET
Illustrator > Inkscape
Acrobat > PDF Creator
Flash > Open Laszlo
Dreamweaver > Nvu...or a good text editor
and so on. I urge everybody to check it out though if you're looking for some more bits of software to play with.

The site Open Source alternative may be of some help here. It lists open source alternatives to many commercial pieces of software. In this case:

Photoshop > Paint.NET
Illustrator > Inkscape
Acrobat > PDF Creator
Flash > Open Laszlo
Dreamweaver > Nvu...or a good text editor
and so on. I urge everybody to check it out though if you're looking for some more bits of software to play with.

If you simply can't wrap your brain around GIMP, then it's probably worth your time to check out Krita.

Is Krita ported to Microsoft Windows? This page seems to have "windows" marked unavailable in the list of supported platforms. Or should I re-buy peripherals such as my flatbed scanner, which still has a big red "unsupported" on the SANE compatibility list? In that case, I would have to wait until I build my next computer against the Ubuntu hardware compatibility list.