Open Source Software: Reviews and Links

[Andrewc]

For those of you that are in the Web site Design business, I would like to start this thread and thank all those guys working on Open-Source (free) software!

Why I started this thread is to get people to share there open-source discoveries. Why I call it discoveries is that there is alot of open source tools and apps that are not known by everyone.

So please posts Links to open-source software and also a small review on the selected software.


p.s If you dont know any open-source software, dont post. Thanks.

 

[Andrewc]

osCommerce

http://www.oscommerce.com

For a great easy to setup eCommerce shop. I recommend.


Another Shopping Cart that I have not really tested but looks good:

http://www.zencart.com/ Zencart

 

[zefram]

Not a web design app, but one great open source app I discovered a few days ago is avidemux2.

It makes video conversion/compression very easy. Supports mostly anything

It comes out for Linux and Windows: http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/

 

[nic777]

Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox with the web developer extension.

Essential when you building/testing websites and really helps when you are coding standards compliant code.

 

[nic777]

Graphics

Kinda forced to use it since I use Linux but Gimp and Inkscape are great for what I need to do so I really enjoy using it.

Gimp is an image-editor so cropping, resizing and blending images is its job.


Inkscape does vector images so you can use to create awesome buttons and logos, amongst other things.

 

[discourse]

freedom toaster - for those who don't know yet

there are several locations across the country where you can download latest versions of all the major linux distros and also the OPEN CD.

http://edison.tsf.org.za/toaster/

thanks to The Shuttleworth Foundation

 

[Andrewc]

Zimbra

Here is a awsome outlook replacement. With calendar sharing and all, check out the hosted demo. Very Cool
You'll need to run it off a Linux server though.

http://www.zimbra.com/

 

[Andrewc]

Columba

http://www.columbamail.org/drupal/

Columba is an Email Client written in Java, featuring a user-friendly graphical interface with wizards and internationalization support.

 

[Andrewc]

PhpBB forum
www.phpbb.com
phpBB is a high powered, fully scalable, and highly customizable Open Source bulletin board package.

A good example of what you can do with it

http://www.backboneit.co.za/forum

enjoy

 

[web]

Turbocash. basic accounting needs.

www.turbocash.co.za

 

[nic777]

PHP - a server-side language which allows your websites to access databases, generate PDFs, send emails, generate images and just about do anything you want it to do.

www.php.net

Have a look at the manual to find out more functions of PHP and to get started.

 

[louisp]

Any1 using turbocash?

Seems like they are fronting the package as something else?

 

[thisgeek]

Turbocash has been around for many years - I remember when it was still a DOS app.

 

[twiga]

linux also makes beautifull music

just type: cat /dev/urandom > /dev/dsp

- twiga

 

[infoseeker]

Lotsa stuff here

http://www.kde-apps.org/

 

[redarrow]

Any other CG animation geeks here?

Wings3D: http://www.wings3d.com
A polygon subdivision modeler, works on Linux, Win32 and several other platforms.

Blender: http://www.blender3d.org/
A complete modeling / animation package, runs on Linux, Win32 and several other platforms.


I also have my very own animation app which I only released a short while back:
Kudu Animator: http://kudu.sourceforge.net/
I'm writing it mainly to complement Wings3D, it's still in a highly pre-alpha development stage though

 

[Jayson]

Apache / PHP / PostgreSQL accounting package called cubit look at
www.cubit.co.za runs on linux and windows

 

[nic777]

Apache / PHP / PostgreSQL accounting package called cubit look at
www.cubit.co.za runs on linux and windows

Do you actually use this?
Does it scale well between small businesses and large businesses?

 

[patrick]

Apache / PHP / PostgreSQL accounting package called cubit look at
www.cubit.co.za runs on linux and windows

Is this open source??? It's definately not free, from the "how it works page" - Monthly cost only R146.

I'll give it a miss... Turbocash still has my vote for accounting software.

 

[andrecubit]

Is this open source??? It's definately not free, from the "how it works page" - Monthly cost only R146.

I'll give it a miss... Turbocash still has my vote for accounting software.

you are obviously not an accountant? (or a linux/bsd user?)
anyway...
nope Cubit is commercial (we have been through many licenses
from bsd to now commercial)
quick answer: turbocash only works on windows, cubit is browser
based and works on most os. we make cubit in rsa for rsa and it
includes everything eg. payroll etc. it is much more advanced
(in the new 2.7 version) than many 000 000's packages and scales
between one user and thousands of users (no per user costs on a lan)

nothing wrong with turbocash if you have a smal bussiness, except that
even though it's older than pastel, your accountant will probably advise
you to use pastel. as i make accounting software i fully understand why.

anyway cubit will be the best business and accounting system out there and if
you look at growth over the past 6 years we are actually the fastest growing
software in rsa... and will work on any linux distro

anyone must use whichever software works for them, i don't think any
one piece of software (os or app) will ever work for everyone, this is
a good thing imho
and if you write software for a living and want to sell it, so be it. it's
yours so license it as you wish - community made software with bsd style
licensing is still the best though mainly because it is true freedom!

my 3c



andre