What OSS Programs are Still Needed?

suso asks: "I was thinking yesterday about how much open source software is out there already. Most categories are filled, but I wonder about what pieces of software still need to be written. What programs would you like to see in OSS form that are currently not available?"

Comments

DRM

[sevinkey]

Need a reliable open source DRM solution that can be proven trustworthy so we can finally have pay content that's not platform dependent.

If you can build a linux box for $70 and call it a linksys router, then with a OSS DRM you should be able to create the equivalent of MCE2005 for $250.

Re:DRM

[finkployd]

DRM is a fundamentally flawed concept. The only implementations of it that exist involve basically turning the concept of public key cryptography upside down. Giving someone a private key with which to decrypt data but then trying to prevent the user from ever coming in contact with that key is just silly.

The way it is SUPPOSED to work is the owner of the key is the only one who controls it and nobody else ever comes in contact with it. The way DRM is supposed to work is by having the content producers control what you can and cannot do with your own private key, and try to keep it from you.

This is why DRM (in its current form) is so easily (and constantly) broken and also why it will never work in an OSS implementation. Even strong proponants of DRM (you can find them at the Digital Identity World conference pontificating about how great DRM will be for the computer industry) admit that someone will be able to break it, they just want to keep everyone from breaking it. Of course once one person breaks it it and unencumbered media is released, then it is all over anyway.

Finkployd

Database

[adam mcmaster]

I hate to say this, but a database frontend that's as good as MS Access would be nice - there are attempts at such applications currently in development, but nothing that's even close to usable.

Re:Database

[Rysc]

There are two theoeries as to why Access is bad:

1) It's DB engine is primative and a joke making all databases created for it fundamentally inferior.

2) It dumbs down databases making DBAs annoyed that their boss' can say "My 12 year old sun threw together a database that works fine in 20 minutes! Why am I paying you?"

The first argument is the only one which is good. You do NOT want to use a technically inferior DB.

The second argument is NOT good. For some people, for some things, you really do not need a DBA. The fact that people CAN build databases without really understanding them is not fundamentally bad, it's an empowerment and fundamentally good... so long as it is understood (as, of course, it some times will not be) that a DB designed by an amature in a WYZIWYG DB app is not the same as a DB designed by a professional, just as some kids VB bitmap editor is not Photoshop.

Free software, in my view, is ultimately about empowerment: My ability to do more. Not necessarily without knowing more, but without spending more, and without being forced to do it someone else's way. To empower more people it can be necessary to allow for people to do more while knowing the same or less (see some aspects of the GNOME philosophy of late). That isn't bad, in fact it's definitively good.

So, just as a WYZIWYG html editor is not bad just because FrontPage blows, a GUI database designer is not bad just because Access blows.

A Simple, End-User Oriented Database

[Dragonmaster Lou]

Something along the lines of Access (though with a better DB engine that Access), FileMaker, Paradox, etc., would be nice.

It should use local files (so you don't need to have a server running, although that could be an option) and have an easy to use form layout system. I don't want to have to administer a database daemon, and I don't want to have to have to hand-hack code for a simple database.

I have mucked around for a while looking for something like this. The closest I've seen in Rekall, but it looks like it still needs to hook up to an external database of some kind, as best as I can tell.

QuarkXPress/InDisign replacement

[rekrutacja]

DTP on linux is simply impossible. Scribus doesn't work (yet?) for most of us...

Good Project Management software

[Tye_Informer]

Until my manager can create/update project plans under Linux, it will not even be considered as a replacement on the desktop.

_all_ FOSS software "still needs to be written"

[LeninZhiv]

The simple fact that the lion's share of a given niche is clearly held by one F/OSS offering (think LAMP), does not mean that there aren't parts of every F/OSS application that cannot be improved upon by anyone. Look at the bug trackers and todo lists of the projects that interest you; contributing, even to a well-entrenched project, is not impossible!

Dreams of geek celebrity status aside, making Linux/Apache/OO.org/YourFavouriteProject better does just as much for 'advancing the cause' as starting a new "killer app" from scratch does (and in 99% of cases, probably more).

Spreadsheets

[Free_Trial_Thinking]

Can I please have a spreadsheet program that doesn't limit me to 64,000 rows? If anyone knows of an easy way to do this please let me know! I've been searching for years. Otherwise please build it into gnumeric, OO, etc, please!

Re:Spreadsheets

[Matt Perry]

If you have 64,000+ rows, doesn't that suggest that gnumeric/OO/Excel are not the right tool to be using?

They are the right tool as they meet all the requirements except for the arbitrary limitation on the number of rows. If you have a single table of data with a lot of records, why resort to a RDBMS to deal with that? Spreadsheets are perfect for displaying that single table of data and then looking at it in different ways, or editing parts of it quickly and saving back out.

With a RDBMS you'd have to write some code to import the data, then use SQL queries to extract the data and some more code to format it in a way that works for you. Sure, you could put it into an HTML table, but what if you want to lock the top row and the first column like you can in a spreadsheet? Then you'll probably have to end up writing a custom application just to present the data.

clarity

[elliotj]

oss needs clarity. think about the mac. everything is immediately obvious to the end user. apps are sensibly named, things make sense. look at .net on windows. again, this is an easy to understand system.

oss is great, but since it's a voluntary collaboration, things are named after inside jokes or poor conventions. the "k"rap naming of kde stuff for example. or "vi", "gawk", "sed" etc. come on.

I know this will be flamed, but I think some kind of clarity council should be setup to provide consistency and simplicity across applications, tools and platforms. with a bit of this kind of organization, linux could really make a dent on the desktop, and new developers and users wouldn't face such a high barrier to entry.

Re:clarity

[Gilk180]

I agree that clarity comes in handly, but I think the main issues you may have are with the distributors.

I use Fedora (bring on the flames) at home and a Mac at work. Everything I can think of on the Mac is easy to find on my Fedora box. Whatever you have chosen for email is labeled email. web is "Firefox Web Browser". Text editor is "Text Editor".

As for programs like vi, gawk, sed, etc. anyone whoe needs to use or knows how to use any of these as well as grep, lex, bison, emacs knows the commands right off.

Digital A/V

[Apreche]

Digital Audio and Video editing. Stuff like Premiere. Acid Music. Reason. CoolEdit. ProTools. iMovie. Doing audio and video editing should be as good on Linux as it is on a Mac.

Also, burning of optical disks. Yes k3b exists. yes, technically you can burn just about anything. But nothing linux can do comes close to Nero. I need all the perfect functionality of Nero in linux.

Steam. The only pc game I play other than puzzle pirates, which is java, needs to run better on linux. Using cedega I can only get the resolution up to 800x600. Anything higher drops the framerate from perfect to less than 1 fps.

Someone else mentioned audio mixers. Alsa is very good, and is about as good as I can expect, but not as good as I can hope for. I have an SBLive! Value with the latest alsa kernel drivers. It works and plays music very well. But if I use winamp in windows with directaudio not only does the mixer work properly and is labeled correctly, but the sound quality is imporoved tenfold. I don't know what the difference is, but even my non-audiophile self can hear a noticeable difference. All my friends hear it too. It's the same hardware, it should work the same regardless of OS.

That's really what linux has to do now. Firefox and 2.6 brought us to the top of the hill, we're just nearing the peak of the mountain. We have support for most hardware and enough software to replace windows as a non-gaming desktop machine that is technologically superior in almost every fashion. But a lot of the hardware support is existent but non-perfect. Sound works, but not perfectly. CD burning works, but not as simple and perfect and beautiful as nero. ATI cards work, but are a pain in the ass. Nvidia cards work, but with closed source drivers. It's like everything works 90% perfectly, we need to push it to perfect, then linux will have smooth seas.

Re:WYSIWYG web design

[name773]

so you want to do something quickly without learning how to do it, and you want the tool for free. have fun :P
also, considering that the people who could build the tool are most likely proficient in both html and c/c++/etc. they probably consider html to be a piece of cake and therefore would not have much motivation to build the program.

Re:Collaborative calendar app...

[acaird]

I agree and am suprised that no one else mentioned this. We have decent (not great, but passable) word processors and spreadsheet programs. Good web browsers. Very good networking and server level stuff. But when people talk about why they use Windows, it's because of Outlook and the calendar. If there was a "firefox" of calendaring it would be really nice. It's more than a client though (unless you can manage to get Exchange calendaring working), so you have to get the server, and it has to operate with the huge MS Outlook base out there.
So, um, good luck.
.

Re:ReactOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just use WINE? I know you said it's unstable, but ReactOS is not really any further ahead in this regard. If ReactOS was given the full Windows API, you could have put the API into WINE and you'd be just as far ahead, and in a Linux environment.

Re:Heres something...

[Noksagt]

Mathematica is under active development by some smart people. It will be difficult to catch-up. Still, Maxima is really quite good. Many of the Matlab clones (scilab, octave) are also great.

Re:It's obvious!

[Rysc]

On the contrary, PySol is the best solitaire suite, bar none.

Games

[j1m 5n0w]

Given how many people dream about writing games, it's surprising how few good open source games there are. Perhaps what's lacking is a good framework - few have the time and abiblity to implement a whole high-quality game from scratch.

I'm quite impressed with stratagus, though. It seems like a reasonably hackable RTS game framework.

-jim