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The Best of Windows Open Source Software?

Posted by Cliff on from the not-just-for-penguins-anymore dept.

Boiotos asks: "I'm cooking up a CD-ROM image of excellent Win32 Open Source software to give to friends and family who are intrigued by the whole OSS movement but don't know where to start. I figure once they're used to Mozilla and AbiWord under WinXP, a Linux partition would be less daunting. So fellow Slashdotters, how about it: what Win32 OSS projects deserve a place on the 650 Mb of Solid Gold? Remember, this is for non-geeks and families, so Cygwin is out (even though I love it) and games are in. Extra points, as always, to the obscure but beautiful. Finally, projects targeting only Win32 -- with no Free Unix crossover -- may apply, but will be subject to a strenuous physical test."

4 of 889 comments (clear)

  1. Sounds like by jchawk · · Score: 1, Troll

    Hi, I'm putting together a cd of free software that I plan on selling on ebay. I'm lazy and I don't want to actually do any leg work, so please slashdot, make me a quick dollar and tell me about some good *free* software that I can sell on my 10,000 programs for windows for 99 cents.

    Oh and if you're interesed you can find the listing at . . .

    hehe

  2. Windows is Open-Source? by javacowboy · · Score: 1, Troll

    Since when? Did aliens kidnap Gates and Balmer and replace them with clones?

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  3. Re:Don't forget to OGG-vocate vorbis by MindStalker · · Score: 0, Troll

    no one wants to use your lame audio formats, Winthorp

  4. Re:hahahah by cscx · · Score: 1, Troll

    Jeez!

    First of all, the registry is a DATABASE. It's not loaded into memory in its entirety at once!

    Each branch has permissions defined by the system's (or NT Domain's) ACLs, just like NTFS!

    The registry can be backed up and restored simply in a multitude of ways. Just because you don't know how doesn't mean it can't be done.

    A lot better than text files. Faster and more organized.

    The registry is meant to give consistency and organization to Windows programs, something that *nix programs LACK. When you can prove that that unorganized shithole known as /etc/ (or is it {$HOME}/? Or something else? Face it - there is NO consistency under Unix) is better than a clean, organized database, you'll begin to catch my ear. Please, just try to begin to prove to me that flatfile text files are better than binary databases. Obviously you've never taken a single reasonably difficult programming class in your life.