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The 10 Coolest Open Source Products of 2008
An anonymous reader writes "Open Source Software is about more than just the Linux operating system, and 2008 brought advances in the form of OpenOffice.org, IBM Lotus Symphony, Firefox and Android. But Linux is still the heart of the FOSS movement, and this year brought key developments in the operating system as well. Here's a look at the coolest open source products to come across the transom in 2008." Along roughly similar lines, davidmwilliams points out the year in review of the iTWire's "Linux Distillery" column.
CCExtractor
*Sorry, couldn't resist.
TFA says this about Open Office 3.0: "With an acquisition cost of between $150 and $200 less than Microsoft Office 2007" Uh. Am I missing something? Isn't the acquisition cost a big $0?
Android *is* new - but is hardly newsworthy by now.
2 Ubuntus, 2 SuSes, a new Fedora.. and a host of applications that just version incremented this year, and a twitter clone.
Meh.
Not dissing the applications.. I think OO3 is a vast improvement, and newer versions of an OS is probably a good thing.. I was just hoping for stuff that wasn't just 'Newest release of MyFlavourHere linux based OS'
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
I didn't even read the the rest, dos not seem worth it. Why can't these list articles have sofware like this.
WinDirStat is my #1 favorite OSS by far and above anything else. This year I have used it a ton, and I even have a contribution budgeted for Feb. It's small, fast, useful and beautiful. Thank you WINDIRSTAT!
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
yeah, theres quite a few innovative packages and systems out there.
I wouldnt feel right without posting my own work of art :)
http://maemo.org/downloads/product/OS2008/liqbase/
http://liqbase.net/
Its the startings of a very touchable UI able to run on performance limited devices (and scaling right up to anything).
liqbase
My software is cooler because it produces a list of hot women. When I see the list I become a vampire. Then I fly about the moonlit night and steal virgins to drink their blood (in a Platonic, non-agressive way); this is why my software is the best. Thankyous, Ti,m,my the Italians/
5 of the 10 are just Linux distro's. Ubuntu 8.10 AND 8.04 were both on the list as seperate entries!?!? And Lotus Symphony, a version of OOo, was listed along with OOo as seperate products. For the most part this could have been condensed down to:
Linux, Firefox, OpenOffice, Android
Which is so boring a list that it's of no use to anyone actually using open source already.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
why is open source crawling through the transom?
still cant get a key eh?
hidden in 500 adds. That site just made my blacklist.
Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
Two different versions of Ubuntu on the list and yet no mentioning of the giant step forward that is Debian's Lenny? I'm disappointed.
This list is entirely without any redeeming value. More than half of the "coolest" products are new versions of operating systems and applications (OMG they released Fedora 9! I may wet myself with glee!), and the rest of it includes useless things like what appears to be a Twitter clone and something IBM's branded as Lotus. Hell, they put Android on there, and that's a hardware platform that doesn't even have a killer app yet.
Ubuntu's on it twice for goodness' sakes! And the second time is the long-term service distribution, which is about as exciting as growing grass!
Normally I don't complain about the stuff that makes it to the front page, but this list is just a complete waste of absolutely everyone's time.
How about some individual projects? Amarok 2 came out in 2008. Other things that existed before but which improved mightily in '08 were:
Flock (released v2)
KDE Released 4x series, abysmal at first, but it's great now.
BasKet Probably doesn't belong on a Best Apps Ever list, but it is pretty useful. This existed before, but I just found it this year and it's great, and it has become a lot more stable for me through the year. Someone help get them to qt4!
There are lots of great apps out there that deserve some love this year.
I like music
Yeh lets turn this into some kind of ask-slashdot thread. Any one else have any cooler projects than the article.
Android is cool but does anyone know why they took out some of the beta functionality (like being able to get driving directions which are now expressly forbidden by the terms of service for the Android google maps API key)?
It seems like it would be fairly trivial to write a turn-by-turn voice app for Android if they still had the API to request driving directions. By knowing the location of the phone the program could easily find what segment of a route it's on (if any at all), see how far it is until the next instruction and then read the instruction using the text2speech library someone has already made.
As it stands, the only way I see of implementing such an app would be to have a webserver somewhere that would forward direction requests from the phone to google using the standard google maps javascript API and then return the directions back to the app. Very much a PITA if you ask me and might violate the terms of use of developing software on Android for all I know.
8 of the items listed are updates to existing open source projects, dating back as much as 10+ years. They can probably republish this article next year with minimal changes, which means it's kind of useless.
Open Source software is generally released early and often, so it's not likely to be cool or exciting when first released, and it slowly becomes more robust and feature-full over time. That doesn't fit into the "xxxx of 2008!" list.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I nominate GCC 4.3 for making everyone fix their C++ includes.
Blender is way cooler than most of those listed. And if you argue that it's just an update, Big Buck Bunny certainly isn't. And if that's not enough, these guys also delivered a game, Yo Frankie!
Not quite mainstream and obvious as the pointless list presented in TFA, but I gotta add: Clojure
Clojure seems at first as Yet Another Lisp or Yet Another JVM Language or the general Yet Another New Programming Language, but once you scratch the surface you will discover it's an amazing engineering feat with groundbreaking design.
Clue for the TFA'a author: there are lots of very interesting open source projects that don't have a damn thing to do with Linux!
007: "Who are you?"
Pussy: "My name is Pussy Galore."
007: "I must be dreaming..."
Jesus christ. I just got eye-raped by all the ads on that page. What're we talking here.. 1:10 ratio of content:crap?
GOOD LUCK WITH THE WEB2.0 SOON TO BE OUT OF BUSINESS WEBSITE
The answer is: GNU/Linux! 2008 was the year of the Linux desktop!
The coolest are:
1 and 2: OpenOffice
3: Firefox
4: OSS Twitter clone that surely will surpass Twitter because Twitter is popular. (?)
5, 6, 7, 8, 9: Linux. (More specifically, Fedora, Ubuntu, Suse, Suse, Ubuntu)
10: Whatever Google released recently. What, it's hardware? Meh, leave it on the list, anyway.
Why is Ubuntu listed twice? How are things that have been around for years the "coolest of 2008"? What's with all the distros? Desktop utilities and relatively normal GNU/Linux distros that have been around for some time are not the COOLEST products of 2008,.. Where are all the FOSS Games listed? Where is Nexuiz? Where is AlienArena? Where is KDE 4?
This story is click-through junk and should not be on slashdot, even on a slow news day
You just got spammed by an ad-farm. Moron.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Why is the Internet not on the list?! Over half of it, anyway. FreeBSD. Linux. Apache. PHP. Embedded devices, routers, switches, wifi; A lot of this is open source too. They keep the networks running, and without their contributions it wouldn't exist. But who cares about infrastructure when--Oooh look, a kitty!
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Sorry, all I'm seeing here is redundancy. A handful of Linux distros, and a few attempts to replace existing commercial apps?
Where's the innovation?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
That is only if the products in fact are equivalent. I would not say OpenOffice is on par with Office 2007 in any terms. Perhaps Office 2000's lightest edition, you get those for 10EUR from internet auctions.
How did Stellarium and/or Celestia *not* make this list!? If one's criteria is for "Cool" applications, these can't do anything but qualify.
The list fails. Lotus Symphony isn't OSS, though it is based off OpenOffice 1. They based it off OpenOffice 1 as opposed to the trunk for 3 at the time, because IBM didn't want to have Symphony a GPL product.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Yeah, the product review reads like one of those meaningless PC World article just advertising existing products trying to keep themselves fresh by just releasing new versions with unnecessary features.
Totally worthless shit. Shame on the writer.
These are all projects with mainstream corporate backing.
In my opinion the list should include projects done by people who don't have vast sums of cash to back them.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
I'd have to say that the most interesting "product" that I've seen this year is an electronics microcontroller platform called Arduino. It started pre-2008, but it has shot up in popularity and had a writeup in Wired this year. The board is open source (blueprints and source code are Creative Commons), and people are making a wide range of alternative form factors with special features.
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Though I suspect the auhor was in a hurry (and the editor was asleep) as 5 of the ten are basically the same: linux distros.
In fact I have a feeling that, apart from the version numbers, this will also be the author's personal list for the 10 coolest / hottest products for 2009, 2010 ... Though it comes nowehere near being mine - nor probably yours, either
yawn!
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
I clicked on this article thinking I could maybe find some really cool open source piece of software that I haven't seen yet. I am completely unimpressed, the list is barely anything more than a bunch of Linux distros.
Here's my personal favorite open source project I discovered in 2008: Spring Engine http://spring.clan-sy.com/
my 2 cents
Formula sites:
1. Post interesting sounding but meatless articles in the form of top 10 lists.
2. Divide the content into 12 parts -- opening, items 1-10, and conclusion.
3. Post pay per view or pay per click ads on each and every page.
4. Profit! While users limp through your lame site.
Not interested -- not even though I have ad-blocking that makes it a futile attempt.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
I actually think the article "Great Linux Innovations Of 2008" on http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=great_linux_innovations_2008&num=1 was much better.
Sorry, if half of your list is just Linux distro shoutouts, you fail.
A single linux item is tolerable, though still a cop out. Listing the same distro twice is just highlighting your mediocrity.
Mod this down. It's not a legitimate link, or even humorous, it's a browser trap.
A really cool open source project would be a web browser which doesn't let web sites do things like that.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
If you haven't read it, then don't bother. 6 or 7 linux distros (half of which are outdated - fedora 9 beta anyone?), open office 3, firefox 3, and ibm lotus symphony. I can't fathom how this made it to the front page. I kept clicking 'next' thinking that I'd find the content of the article just around the corner.
What sort sick circular logic are you using. You want an MS Office replacement that doesn't require training. What exactly can OOo do to satisfy your requirements?
As much as i hate to give RMS credit, GNU is the real heart of that side of the house.
But never forget, BSD was there first.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I wonder, who here has actually tried Lotus Symphony?
I have; it's part of Notes 8 which I use at work. After about two minutes of acquaintance with it, I reinstalled OOo3: They actually managed to break some things that OOo gets right (CSV import/export in Calc) and completely omit (WTF?!) other parts (Draw).
I have no idea why they would do that. But it certainly makes the whole experience more, um, Lotussy. (If only that were a good thing!)
"Good news, everyone!"
There is. It is called "Firefox with NoScript"
Climate Progress - Hell and High Water
someone.... a decent daw or audio sequencer on linux.... it would make me move at least one machine to linux here @ home
Besides, considering how much MS Word (in particular) tends to frustrate you by doing its own thing, I'd say transitioning to OO.o is that much more trivial when you have a lot of control and usablility to trade for your effort.
What's more, It's immeasurably easier to transition to OO.o than to transition to the MS Office "Ribbon" interface. So, again, your argument isn't well founded.
It's been my experience that the people who have problems switching between Microsoft Office and OpenOffice are precisely the ones who should be using LaTeX.
People who use (either) Office for its intended purpose (form letters, business correspondence, short reports) should find them very nearly interchangeable.
Too many people use their Word Processor as a Swiss-Army-Knife of Desktop Publishing. After time, they learn to take its idiosyncrasies so completely for granted that switching to *ANYTHING* else (even a later version of the same product) is painful.
The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
I am kind of surprised that Asterisk didn't make the list. There is a complete open source revolution happening in the field of Telephony. Asterisk 1.6 has been released, and Asterisk 1.4 is very solid and not only can do everything that the conventional higher end PBXs do, but can do a lot more.
Asterisk has also inspired some other open source PBX projects. Asterisk doesn't necesarrily need to be only a IP pbx either, but in the VOIP field there are loads of exciting products that are revolutionizing telephony.
Surely one of those products is at least worth a mention instead of putting linux in the list 4 times and open office in there twice.
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
What exactly is teh License? Wkipedia says "Proprietary."
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
That's totally pointless.
The list did seem to be a bit distro-heavy.
Hard to imagine DD-WRT not being on any FOSS project top-ten list. Although begun in 2004, v24 was released this past May, and is already up to service pack 2. It's very much under active development.
Perhaps Canonical can graciously give up one of its two slots and let Brainslayer et al share the fun.
Brother, your post is doubleplusgood. It reminds posters that only posts conforming to groupthink are allowed. The GP must be taken for re-education for his ungroupthinkful comment.
There are no bugs in OSS
Choice is slavery
Open Source is strength
That was 2006
Hang on - no it was 2005
Or was it 2004
Or maybe 2003
Surely it was 2002
But if I remember correctly...
Every single organization I have worked with has training costs already in place.
You keep using Office, you train people, you use something else, you still train people. All that mumbo-jumbo about productivity is not being measured anywhere where they actually need to get things done, and administration changes would be minimal (what would that be btw?)
And what about this nonsense about IT departments being familiar with something as an important factor for adoption? If this was even remotely relevant we would still be doing computing with WordPerfect and Lotus running in MSDOS. After was what everybody was familiar with.
There is a point when changes must be introduced because the benefits are too obvious.
Replacing MS products has reached that stage, it is only inertia what is stopping businesses from doing so, costs are frankly negligible and technical merit is beyond doubt at this point.
The training "issue" is a red herring, any skills you may have acquired using MS Office are perfectly transferable to OO.org
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
In smaller shops, less likely but not unheard off.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.