Software you might already use
Did you know that you might already be using free open source software without knowing it?Open source applications are not just for Linux, but run on a number of different operating systems including Windows and OSX.
Here is a list of some software and products that use free open source technology that you might already be using:
 | 7-Zip | File archiver (like Winzip) with high compression ratio |
 | Abiword | Word processing program similar to Microsoft Word |
 | Amaya | Web editor tool |
 | Audacity | Sound editor |
 | Blender | 3D graphics creation program |
 | Clam AntiVirus | Antivirus software |
 | Democracy Player | Internet television application and media player |
 | Gaim | Internet chat program supporting many different networks |
 | Gimp | Raster image manipulation editor (like Adobe Photoshop) |
 | Inkscape | Vector graphics editor |
 | Limewire | The flagship peer to peer (P2P) client on the Gnutella network |
 | Mozilla Firefox | Very popular web browser |
 | Mozilla Thunderbird | The sister email client of Firefox |
 | MPlayer | Media player |
 | Nvu | Complete web authoring system |
 | OpenOffice.org | Complete office suite compatible with Microsoft Office |
 | PDF Forge | PDF creation program |
 | Scribus | Page layout desktop publishing program |
 | Video Lan Client | Media player and video streaming solution |
 | Wikipedia.org | Online community based encyclopaedia |
 | Wireshark | Network monitor application |
And many more...
A project called 'The Open CD' provides a downloadable CD which includes many of the above pieces of software. You can even distribute freely to your friends!
If you want to see what open source is all about but are not ready to 'make the move' all the way to Linux, why not download some or all of the above software for your operating system? When you discover how great they are, perhaps you will be ready to take the next step to an entirely free and open source operating system too!