Slashdot Mirror
The Best Unknown Open Source Projects
itwbennett writes "Carla Schroder points to an interesting trend in open source: 'The growth of large distributed projects.' OpenTox, which uses computer modeling instead of animal testing for chemical toxicity testing, and AMEE (Avoiding Mass Extinctions Engine), which uses open source software and methodologies to collect, map, measure and analyze carbon dioxide data, are two such projects. 'FOSS presents a natural platform for building large distributed projects because of the low barrier to entry — open code, open standards, and freely-available robust, high-quality high-performance software,' says Schroder."
What open source project gets less attention than you think it deserves?
I don't really know of any. I guess that's sort of the problem.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
The Learning Registry makes federal learning resources easier to find, easier to access and easier to integrate into learning environments wherever they are stored -- around the country and the world. This will enable teachers, students, parents, schools, governments, corporations and non-profits to build and access better, more interconnected and personalized learning solutions needed for a 21st-century education.
http://www.learningregistry.org
What is your favorite breed of dog?
I ask, because "What open source project gets less attention than you think it deserves?" has pretty much nothing to do with the actual topic - large distributed open-source projects - which apparently the submitter forgot at some point during the submission process.
#DeleteChrome
Two awesome photo management apps that fit almost any workflow with a very clean, intuitive interface. Gwenview is a lighter program that's very easy to use and Digikam is a more professional one with some very advanced features.
I've always pictured the color of OS zealotry as a sort of bright flamingo pinkish hue
If there's one thing we can count on foreigners for, it's leaving out context. I am going to just go ahead and assume that the "Carla" you refer to is "Carla's Salon, Boutique and Meeting Place for the Transgender Community" and leave it at that. I am sure they thank you for your support.
Open-source ClearCase-like revision control and configuration management. Completely automatic dependency detection for any kind of build or tool, site-wide caching (for any kind of tool), O(1) checkouts/checkins, etc. Been around forever; was easily doing all of these things 10 years ago--nobody knows it exists.
www.vestasys.org
The projects do have a bit of a liberal slant to them. What ever happened to OpenKillThemAllAndLetGodSortThemOut and the "CCTV Facial Recognition at Home" Initiative?
RTEMS (http://www.rtems.org) is a 20+ year old project that most people here have never heard of. But you have seen the results of projects that use it. NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory (http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/) and Dawn (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/main/index.html) missions, ESA's Herschel (http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Herschel/index.html) and Planck (http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Planck/index.html) projects, JPL's Electra radio that circles Mars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Reconnaissance_Orbiter#Engineering_instruments). Physics labs including Stanford Linear Accelerator, Argonne, and Canadian Light Source have used RTEMS based instruments to make contributions to science. Commercial applications include engine control, building control and intercom systems, data logging, environmental monitoring, and medical devices. RTEMS is out there in the real world in lots of things which you might have used but never knew free software was there.
Obviouslt since slashdot is running on the code that slashdot is running on it is eating its own dogfood.
An open source rules engine with a focus on flexibility, small foot print, limited dependencies (no runtime dependencies), and clear descriptions of business logic. Does not implement backtracking or forward chaining, and thus very fast, very easy to use, and relatively easy to debug... ...and very unknown.
distributed.net has almost all of those features, but it's not sexy anymore.
http://www.lyx.org/
A ``What You See is What You Mean'' document editor which uses LaTeX to typeset final output, it has a lot of other options and a nice, sensible, straight-forward interface which is everything Word's Ribbon is not.
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
I used to dream of setting up an office network environment based on Linux and FOSS. Only, there there was one thing missing: a proper file system. That's why I think OpenAFS -- the distributed file system -- deserves more attention.
Most *nix fans use either NFS, which is simple, but scales badly and lacks encryption, or Samba, which was designed to support Windows clients. OpenAFS, on the other hand, offers file sharing and replicated read-only content distribution, provides location independence, scalability, security, and transparent migration capabilities. Client software includes support for UNIX, Linux, MacOS X, and Windows. The code base is very stable and it has an active development and support community.
Without Classic mode I would not be visiting this site anymore.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
I absolutely love to use zim (http://zim-wiki.org/) and kupfer (http://kaizer.se/wiki/kupfer/).
The former is a local wiki/notetaking app. I find it very useful to collect stuff and write technical stuff and manage simple TODO lists. I know there are many similar apps (cherrytree) but I am most comfortable with zim.
Kupfer is a quicksilver-like launcher that is extremely fast and uses no RAM or CPU whatsoever. Out of all the ones I tried (including Do) it's the best for my needs, and being written/expandable by python, it's easy to write a plugin for a specific task or program.
There's also iLua (https://github.com/ilua/ilua) which is a powered Lua shell with some built-in helpers such as table serializers and such. Unfortunately it's not compatible with 5.2 (yet?).
I'd say RepRap. Not that it is "unknown", but strange it is not mentioned all that often when one thinks about from that first blogpost in -05 and what have happened since. Especially these days when you can get the plasticparts (clonedel), stepper motors on ebay and a small drillpress for cheaps. Not to mention tiny "one board", easy to solder through hole solutions like Sanguinololu.
Passwordmaker generates ditto for all my internets accounts, pinpadlocks etc. Runs on whatever you throw it at, as javascript, android, crapple, N900 (Thanks George (caco3)!), as CLI. Portable to say the least, mature and of course secure to the extent of what cards you got up your sleeve.
I use Zim to organize everything these days! It's stays out of your way and doesn't complicate things. It uses textfiles as database, which is really nice as you get access to your stuff quickly through a terminal for example. Ok, sure I long for the day that it gets say a Couchdb-plugin...
Redshift safes my eyes from getting cooked. I have yet to download that maemosandbox and compile it for my N900 though. There was a new release a few days ago btw, some new fine functions and not "just" bugfixes!
"If terrorists hate us for our freedom, does that mean they're slowly starting to like us?" -- Philosoraptor.
One great project that it seems few people know about is Hugin, which is great for photo stitching (panoramas), perspective correction, etc.
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.