Wolverhampton City Learning Centre (CLC)

There is a considerable "buzz" in the world of software at the moment about a new breed of software applications labelled together as "Open Source". What does this mean?

Traditionally, we have been able to categorise software into 3 main categories:

1. Commercial software like Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Dreamweaver etc.

2. Shareware applications like WinZip, which you can legally download from the Internet and install, and even redistribute (i.e. give a copy to your friend), but which, if you continue to use, you should pay for. In some cases, the software is restricted in some way until you pay, in others it may annoy you with "reminders" to purchase.

3. Freeware applications which are genuinely free.

The term "Open Source" refers to freeware applications which are not only free, but for which programmers can download and modify the source code. For most of us, the ability to play with the code may seem meaningless - after all, how many people have a clue what to do with the code once they’ve opened it? However, the fact that skilled professional programmers do know what to do with it means that whole communities of people gather on the Internet to enhance, debug and collaborate in improving the software. Want to see a new feature in the software? Suggest it in an online forum and someone may decide they think you’ve got a good idea and go to the trouble of implementing it.

There are now Open Source alternatives to almost any commercial software you care to mention. Are they as good as the commercial alternatives, though? Well, it depends on what you mean by "good". The features of Open Source alternatives will tend to be more restrictive. Microsoft has spent millions of dollars developing Microsoft Office over the years, and a free alternative is not going to be able to compete with the extraordinary set of features that have resulted. Think for a moment, however, about how many of these features you actually use. The majority of people only use a tiny subset of the features of a piece of software like Microsoft Word or Excel. An Open Source alternative may do everything that you do with the commercial product, but cost you nothing.

A quick list of favourite Open Source / freeware software applications

All of the following pieces of software are free, and to the best of my knowledge, contain no spyware or adware. As with all software, you install it at your own risk, and should only install it onto a PC over which you have full administrative rights (e.g. a home PC). If you wish to install it onto a school PC, seek the advice of your network manager first.

Office Suites

OpenOffice - a fully featured Open Source alternative to Microsoft Office

OpenOffice (www.openoffice.org) is a fantastice, Open Source alternative to Microsoft Office. It includes a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation package. In most cases these operate in a very similar manner to their Microsoft equivalents. There are even some features not found in the Microsoft product; for example, OpenOffice Writer (the word processor) can export files as PDF (Acrobat files) - something that users have been wanting from Microsoft Word for years. It also does a really good job of opening up and exporting Word files, so that work brought home from school or the office in Word format can be opened at home, edited, then saved back into Word format to take back for further editing. In my opinion, anyone with a "dodgy" copy of Microsoft Office on their home PC now has absolutely no excuse to continue to break software licensing law (not that you ever really had an excuse . . .). Go to openoffice.org and download this instead.

Graphics packages

The most heralded Open Source alternative to Adobe Photoshop or Corel Paint Shop Pro is The GIMP (The GNU Image Manipulation Program), which can be downloaded from www.gimp.org. It takes some getting used to (the interface is not particularly easy), but is a very powerful tool for modifying and creating digital photographs and artwork.

Web Design

I’ve always been a big fan of Macromedia Dreamweaver, and no Open Source alternative is going to drag me away just yet, but NVU (www.nvu.com) is a competent piece of software that is certainly worth a look.

These applications, and other pieces of Open Source software, can be downloaded together as a CD image (ISO) file for burning onto CD from www.theopencd.org. Remember, that because it is Open Source software you can legally make as many copies as you wish, and distribute them to whomever you wish.

Here are a few other pieces of free software to have a look at:

• CCleaner - for cleaning out all of the temporary files that Windows, Internet Explorer, and other software applications leave behind.
• Firefox and Opera - two excellent free alternatives to Internet Explorer
• TuxPaint - a really fun paint program designed for young children.
• 7-Zip - an open source alternative to the WinZip file archiving program.
• Moodle - the fantastic Virtual Learning Environment (tricky to install and configure for the non-technical, but unbelievably sophisticated - visit the CLC elearning portal for a sample installation)

TuxPaint - an easy-to-use, great fun painting program for young children

So the next time, you (or your school) are contemplating purchasing a piece of software, try looking for free alternatives first; you may find that they do exactly what you need.