CNet has a slide show with it’s top Windows programs. It’s a pretty good list. I’d agree with it for pretty much everything. What I found really interesting is that of the 9 listed, 7 are open source. Here’s the rundown with the license for the source of each:
- Audacity – GPL
- Paint.NET – MIT License
- OpenOffice – LGPL
- Pidgin – GPL
- VLC Media Player – GPL
- FileZilla – GPL
- WinPatrol – Proprietary
- Mozilla Firefox – MPL/LGPL/GPL
- Process Explorer – Proprietary
Interesting to see the penetration of open source here.
4 replies on “Top Windows Programs Open Source”
Furthermore, 6 of those 9 (all the open source ones bar Paint.Net) are cross-platform, and are available for users of Linux and Mac OS X.
Neil T.: Good point. Didn’t even think of that. Pidgin isn’t available for Mac, though Adium is, and it’s built off of the same core libPurple, so I guess it counts.
This doesn’t really surprise me. The real win for free software on the desktop over the last five years hasn’t been Linux switchers, it’s been free software which is available on Windows. OpenOffice has a bigger mindshare than even Firefox amongst the PC World crowd these days.
– Chris
Also bear in mind that WinPatrol isn’t needed on Mac/Linux too, and Process Explorer there are probably GUI alternatives to.