open source programmers

Apr 27 2009

A Brief History of Free Software (Part 2)

Two weeks ago we took a look at the roots of free software. Taking another break from downloads (last one), we’ll look at friends and foes of Open Source.

Companies that Understand Free Software

Apple – We’ve already noted that OS X’s evolving core is Open Source. Along with Darwin, Apple has made contributions that include Rendezvous.

IBM – Big Blue’s engineers are proponents open standard projects like XML’s FOAF. The company uses and promotes Open Source software, and has been a legal champion of the GPL.

HP – HP has been flakey on Open Source (the company has firm ties to Microsoft) but at a recent Linux tradeshow unveiled a Linux laptop.

Novell – Freshly burned my Microsoft’s monopolistic power, Novell purchased SUSE Linux and funds the development of Ximian (makers of Evolution and Ximian Desktop). The company joins Red Hat as a for-profit distributor of Linux.

Companies that Don’t

Microsoft – Redmond’s anti-Open Source efforts are the stuff of legend to hard core GNU’s. What is reality is the companies strategy of suing Open Source out of business over patent infringement. Microsoft claims hundreds of these exist in Linux. Companies like IBM have established legal funds to protect Open Source programmers.

SCO – This former distributor of Linux claims to own code present in the Linux core and is after licensing fees from Linux users world-wide. The problem with their claim is that the code in question was released by them under the GPL, which the group seeks to discredit. (here’s the latest on the SCO case)

Making Money of Free software

Microsoft has a right to be scared, don’t they? How are they supposed to make money on free software? Well, this would require innovative business thought (rather than Redmond bully tactics). Millions if not billions are made with free software, and here’s how:

  • Distributions – Under the GPL the software must be free, but companies can charge for distribution on CD
  • Consulting – Open Source software is powerful, but can be quirky. Custom installations bring in big bucks from corporate customers
  • Support – OS software comes with no support. Many companies who sell Linux distrobutions offer support
  • Supplementory Documentation – Manuals and tutorials are another source of revenue for software companies

For companies that use Open Source, there are great advantages. The nature of Open Source invites innovation and feedback from thousands of programmers not on the company payroll. Many have attributed the lack of OS X’s viruses to its open core. Since the source is public, more programmers and developers are available to find and plug security holes.

Open Source software isn’t going away. It is changing the shape of the industry, so it is worth taking time to understand the implications. For the Freeloader, Open Source means unprecedented, legal access to software for everyone (Free as in Freedom). For software companies it means closing a side. Now that you know the players, so you can spend your money in sopport of companies that get Open Source.

That concludes my brief history of free software. I’ll be back next week with more great Mac freeware.

By admin • Articles, Freeloader Friday Download of the Week • Comments Off • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Apr 27 2009

Sweet Suites (native too!)

Remember the good old days when Office and Photoshop/Illustrator were the kings of software? In some ways they still are, but one thing
has changed. Thanks to the powerful underpinnings of OS X and the hard work of open source programmers, office suites and creative
applications are capable and free. This week we’ll look at some of the
newcomers.

OpenOffice 3

OpenOffice has been available on the Mac for years – if you didn’t mind
installing X11. And it was slow and ugly.

openoffice3 Sweet Suites (native too!)

With version 3 OpenOffice has gone native, in addition to the
introduction of the solver in Calc (spreadsheets), new views for
Writer and other new features. And this version of OpenOffice makes itself right at home on the Mac.
I found it launching and opening files even faster than the Windows version
on a comparable machine.

It still does not take advantage of all of the fluidity of the OS X
interface, but for many previous users who were turned off but the
ugly x-windows interface it will be more than good enough. What’s
more, it even sports a few features not present in the
Mac version of Office (which Ballmer will tell you in junk anyway).

DrawBerry

While we are getting rid of ugly X11 interfaces, users of the powerful
but not-so-pretty Inkscape have another SVG-based vector design app to
consider.

drawberry Sweet Suites (native too!)

DrawBerry is free, and sports the expected toolset and some very iApp
looking palettes. You’ll find a shape library, text formatting, align
tools and more. Unfortunately, I found DrawBerry a little crashy -
particularly when messing with text. Hopefully that will get worked
out in future versions.

ChocoFlop

Innovations in OS X open the door for advanced and fast graphics
interaction. ChocoFlop takes advantage of CoreImage (and even points
you to some extra Core Image filters to add even more image effects).

chocoflop Sweet Suites (native too!)

ChocoFlop also has an export to web tool to prep images for web use
(powered by ImageMagick). Its tiny footprint, native code and
non-destructive effects editing make it a great choice. Right now, you
can grab a pre-release license for free (or donate). Once this tool
hits 1.0 it will go shareware.

Free tools are great, but fee tools that actually feel at home in OS X
are even better.

Brian

By admin • Articles, Freeloader Friday Download of the Week • Comments Off • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Apr 27 2009

Freeloader Farewell– The Best Freeware of 2008

With less and less time to devote to the series (and less and less frequent episodes) it is time for a change. Fortunately, the amazing power of the Mac’s free software community has been here long before Freeloader and will be around for years to come. With the welcome addition of iPhone freeware, the future is bright! But enough nostalgia, let’s get to the list:

Best on the Web

I have to admit, I cheat on Firefox all the time (most recently on the PC side with Chrome) but I always come back. There are worthy contenders but the extensibility, community and recent version 3 enhancements to make it more ‘Mac’ make Firefox the workhorse of the web.

Winner: Firefox 3.0, but don’t forget Safari, Opera and Camino.

Freeware Classic

For years, Mac users had to suffer through the accusation that the Mac OS lived and died by Microsoft’s support of Office for Mac. Fortunately the support of Sun, the work of Open Source programmers and some missteps by Microsoft have ended the validity of that argument. Apart from whatever the ‘ribbon’ is and erroneous new file formats, Office has not changed – but OpenOffice has. In its new Aqua-native flavor, OpenOffice not only brings a robust office suite to the Mac (for free) but also includes an Access-compatible relational database app called Base. With the latest version OpenOffice also includes support for extensions, a la Firefox.

Winner: OpenOffice.org

Best App Killed by Apple

This category features an app rendered useless by Apple. With the App Store emerging as the crowning achievement of the iPhone, it is easy to forget that Apple was not the first to deliver 3rd party apps on the most exciting new platform around. While many contributed to the Jailbreaking of the iPhone, one company was a bold sponsor of rouge 3rd party hacking: Conceited Software. They supported jailbreaking on every version of the OS up to 2.0. Where are they now? I guess you could say they moved on with the rest of us. You can find several of their excellent 3rd party apps in Apple’s app store.

Winner: Conceited Software (App Store apps).

Best System Extension

The move to Intel opened up all kinds of possibilities for running other operating systems on the Mac. While Boot Camp works, Parallels and VMware quickly provided support for running Windows apps along side Mac apps. Our friends at Sun released a powerful emulator similar to an old mac favorite VirtualPC. VirtualBox brings Windows to Intel Macs without a reboot, and allows the management of multiple virtual machines.

Winner: VirtualBox.

Best Mac-Only

It is a shame that this award has to be given postuously. For years, the process of encoding video for the iPod or Apple TV was a much better experience on the Mac thanks to iSquint and its paid older brother (the Swiss army knife of video conversion, VisualHub). Sadly, both of these have been discontinued.

Winner: iSquint, honorable mention goes to AdiumX and Cyberduck.

iPhone App

I love Apple and Apple design, but I find myself pretty frequently unsatisfied with a feature gap in OS X or the iPhone OS. One might argue the biggest outstanding feature gap in the iPhone is file access. BriefCase was one of the first to conquer this, and thanks to a lite version, allows free (and ad-free) access to a file store on your iPhone as well as the files on your Mac.

Winner: BriefcaseLite, honorable mention to Mocha VNC Lite and
Pandora.

Rookie of the Year

This one goes to an app with a lot of potential that hit the Mac scene about a year ago. This vector drawing app looks great and has a good and growing feature set.

Winner: DrawBerry

Lifetime Achievement Award

Backing up your Mac will never go out of style. One app has leveraged OS X’s Unix power with a slick aqua interface for years. Carbon Copy Cloner brought bootable backups to the Mac, and continues to support optimized backup on the fly or by a schedule. And, its always been free!

Winner: Carbon Copy Cloner

Hats off to the many skilled developers that have made the Mac rock for all these years! And what of the Freeloader? While the Freeloader Series is complete, stay tuned for more great reviews, features and tutorials.

Thanks for reading!

Brian (blog | twitter)

By admin • Articles, Freeloader Friday Download of the Week • Comments Off • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

1 2