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.