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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.
I think that says that 200 - 0 = 200 (so the OO.org costs less than Microsoft Office... with about $200)
1 is Open Office, 1 is an open office derivative. 1 is a website. 1 is firefox 3. 1 is Android. The rest are linux distros.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
isn't that just a windows clone of the KDE program that does the same thing? Kdirstat (i think)
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.
Even though the source code is ugly as sin (sorry comskip author, but it is, it's one big C file that's nearly impossible to dissect) -- a nice addition to CCExtractor is comskip.
http://www.kaashoek.com/comskip/
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.
Plus Ubuntu's on the list twice. So here's the article reproduced verbatim, sans ads, just as a giant middle finger extended in the direction of CRN and all the other assbags using this format these days.
OpenOffice.org 3.0
The popular -- and free -- open source productivity suite hit its milestone 3.0 version in 2008, making it more clear than ever that its functionality and compatibility with Microsoft Office (including OpenOffice Impress, which is PowerPoint compatible) make it a force to be reckoned with. With an acquisition cost of between $150 and $200 less than Microsoft Office 2007, it could have a big year in a down economy in 2009.
IBM Lotus Symphony
IBM has taken great pains to position itself as more of a middleware company than a desktop productivity software company, but diverged from that path a bit in 2008. By launching and upgrading its IBM Lotus Symphony suite of productivity apps based on OpenOffice.org, IBM is once again using the Lotus brand to take aim against Microsoft on the desktop.
Firefox 3.0
Die-hard Firefox users showed thanks for the Mozilla community's efforts to eliminate memory leaks and other annoyances in the most recent iterations of the open-source browser. Features like its "awesome bar" are also helping it continue to gain market share against Microsoft Internet Explorer, even as it's fending off new challenges from Google's new Chrome browser.
Laconica
If microblogging site Twitter became the social networking smash of 2008, 2009 could be a great year for the open-source microblogging platform called Laconica. The best-known site using that code, Identi.ca, allows communication through browsers, e-mail and SMS messaging -- giving a powerful, free alternative to those seeking to build their own social networking or microblogging platforms.
Fedora 9
Test Center highlighted three intriguing aspects for Fedora 9: the new desktop schemes, the new package management system and back-end improvements to memory usage and performance. On the desktop front, Fedora 9 Beta offers GNOME 2.22 and KDE 4.0.2 as the defaults. GNOME 2.22 in Fedora 9 has better file system performance, security improvements and the ability to manage power right at the login screen (quite handy on a laptop). There's also better Bluetooth integration, especially for Palm devices.
Ubuntu 8.10
Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop Edition, nicknamed "Intrepid Ibex," provides so much functionality and ease of use, at zero cost of acquisition, that it is really impossible to ignore. For anyone or any business not tied to Microsoft legacy desktop applications, Ubuntu 8.10 may realistically be considered a smarter choice in many scenarios.
OpenSuSE 11
Novell didn't launch a new version of its SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop in 2008, but it did shepherd the OpenSuSE community that delivered OpenSuSE 11. OpenSUSE is powerful, and improvements in usability, performance and stability should attract and win back users from other Linux distributions. There is some business advantage to consider OpenSUSE instead of Ubuntu or Fedora because of Novell's relationship with Microsoft, such as the tweaks to OpenOffice.org that make document conversion and migration easier, as well as the hypervisor adapter support. OpenSUSE is probably best for power users, those who can take advantage of the virtualization support and those with more experience using Linux.
Novell JeOS
SUSE Linux Enterprise JeOS (pronounced "juice"), the beta "Just enough" operating system from Novell is a lightweight and barebones version of the company's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. The code base is SLES 10 Service Pack 2. The stripped-down operating system is intended specifically for virtual appliances. Applications certified to run on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server will carry that certification onto the JeOS
I really don't accept your statement that "OpenOffice wouldn't be free in accounting terms as there would be training and admin costs on top of that." Just about every office suite is basically the same, and it doesn't matter what software package that you give your people because there will "always" be training involved. The only difference here is that OpenOffice is free. I can't begin to tell you the amount of time that I had to spend training people on Microsoft Office on just the basic functions, so it wouldn't have mattered if it was OpenOffice, or Microsoft Office because most of people out there don't have a clue. Most of them don't even use any advanced features, so in reality they could just use Google Docs...but, I'd have to train them on that too;-)
We pay $400 per license for MS Office here at work.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
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.
Training is expensive, and there would be a re-productivity curve for employees too, and thus a resultant increased cost again.
Actually, our organization recently upgraded MS Office and had to go through the retraining costs because of those stupid "ribbon" interfaces. The newer release is rather radically different from older releases, so the issue of retraining costs is moot.
In addition to that, Open Office actually maintains a better user interface compatability with older releases of MS Office than Office itself does.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
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!"
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.