“Open source software is computer software with its source code made available and licensed with a license in which the copyright holder provides the rights to study, change and distribute the software to anyone and for any purpose”[1]. As a Computer Science student, I am glad that there are many open source software that are available for students and teachers to use without paying anything while doing school projects.
Open source software is not limited to students and teachers, it is available for industrial use for free as well. In the Java development community, there are two main integrated Development Environments: Eclipse (owned by IBM) and NetBeans (owned by Sun/Oracle). This is one-step closer for students to get familiar with the tools that are used in the software industry. For example, those students who are using Eclipse in school are most likely to learn the industrial Java development tool, which is called Rational Application Development from IBM, quicker.
Another useful tool is OpenProj, which was developed at Projity by Marc O'Brien, Howard Katz and Laurent Chretienneau in 2007. There is now a newer version called ProjectLibre. This is a very good tool for people to outline and create tasks for their projects. They can breakdown tasks and stages. Unfortunately, there are still some limited functionality compare to the pay software applications. But sometimes we don’t need all functions fully loaded, though. We just need those simple applications but it is easy to use and has enough functionality for us to complete our tasks and work. I personally thank those people who use their space time to create those open source applications for us to use.
Open source software is not limited to students and teachers, it is available for industrial use for free as well. In the Java development community, there are two main integrated Development Environments: Eclipse (owned by IBM) and NetBeans (owned by Sun/Oracle). This is one-step closer for students to get familiar with the tools that are used in the software industry. For example, those students who are using Eclipse in school are most likely to learn the industrial Java development tool, which is called Rational Application Development from IBM, quicker.
Another useful tool is OpenProj, which was developed at Projity by Marc O'Brien, Howard Katz and Laurent Chretienneau in 2007. There is now a newer version called ProjectLibre. This is a very good tool for people to outline and create tasks for their projects. They can breakdown tasks and stages. Unfortunately, there are still some limited functionality compare to the pay software applications. But sometimes we don’t need all functions fully loaded, though. We just need those simple applications but it is easy to use and has enough functionality for us to complete our tasks and work. I personally thank those people who use their space time to create those open source applications for us to use.
Picture from online.
Below are some popular open source applications:
- MySQL (now owned by Oracle): Popular relational database.
- Eclipse: Java development tool
- NetBeans: Java development tool
- Red Hat: Major distributor of Linux for server and desktop use.
- WordPress: Widely used blogging platform.
- NotePad++: Coding editor for Windows
- SugarCRM: Business customer relations management.
- Magento: E-commerce shopping platform.
- OpenProj/ProjectLibre: Project management software.
Picture from online
[1]. St. Laurent, Andrew M. (2008). Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing. O'Reilly Media. p. 4
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