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- [[floss]]
- == Appendix: FLOSS
- NOTE: Please note that this section was written in 2003, so some of this might sound quaint to you
- :-)
- "Free/Libre and Open Source Software", in short, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOSS[FLOSS] is based
- on the concept of a community, which itself is based on the concept of sharing, and particularly
- the sharing of knowledge. FLOSS are free for usage, modification and redistribution.
- If you have already read this book, then you are already familiar with FLOSS since you have been
- using *Python* all along and Python is an open source software!
- Here are some examples of FLOSS to give an idea of the kind of things that community sharing and
- building can create:
- http://www.kernel.org[Linux] ::
- This is a FLOSS OS kernel used in the GNU/Linux operating system. Linux, the kernel, was started by
- Linus Torvalds as a student. Android is based on Linux. Any website you use these days will mostly
- be running on Linux.
- http://www.ubuntu.com[Ubuntu] ::
- This is a community-driven distribution, sponsored by Canonical and it is the most popular
- GNU/Linux distribution today. It allows you to install a plethora of FLOSS available and all this
- in an easy-to-use and easy-to-install manner. Best of all, you can just reboot your computer and
- run GNU/Linux off the CD! This allows you to completely try out the new OS before installing it on
- your computer. However, Ubuntu is not entirely free software; it contains proprietary drivers,
- firmware, and applications.
- http://www.libreoffice.org/[LibreOffice] ::
- This is an excellent community-driven and developed office suite with a writer, presentation,
- spreadsheet and drawing components among other things. It can even open and edit MS Word and MS
- PowerPoint files with ease. It runs on almost all platforms and is entirely free, libre and open
- source software.
- http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox[Mozilla Firefox] ::
- This is _the_ best web browser. It is blazingly fast and has gained critical acclaim for its
- sensible and impressive features. The extensions concept allows any kind of plugins to be used.
- http://www.mono-project.com[Mono] ::
- This is an open source implementation of the Microsoft .NET platform. It allows .NET applications
- to be created and run on GNU/Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, Mac OS and many other platforms as well.
- http://httpd.apache.org[Apache web server] ::
- This is the popular open source web server. In fact, it is _the_ most popular web server on the
- planet! It runs nearly more than half of the websites out there. Yes, that's right - Apache handles
- more websites than all the competition (including Microsoft IIS) combined.
- http://www.videolan.org/vlc/[VLC Player] ::
- This is a video player that can play anything from DivX to MP3 to Ogg to VCDs and DVDs to ... who
- says open source ain't fun? ;-)
- This list is just intended to give you a brief idea - there are many more excellent FLOSS out
- there, such as the Perl language, PHP language, Drupal content management system for websites,
- PostgreSQL database server, TORCS racing game, KDevelop IDE, Xine - the movie player, VIM editor,
- Quanta+ editor, Banshee audio player, GIMP image editing program, ... This list could go on
- forever.
- To get the latest buzz in the FLOSS world, check out the following websites:
- - http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/[OMG! Ubuntu!]
- - http://www.webupd8.org/[Web Upd8]
- - http://www.distrowatch.com[DistroWatch]
- - http://planet.debian.org/[Planet Debian]
- Visit the following websites for more information on FLOSS:
- - http://github.com/explore[GitHub Explore]
- - http://www.codetriage.com/[Code Triage]
- - http://www.sourceforge.net[SourceForge]
- - http://www.freshmeat.net[FreshMeat]
- So, go ahead and explore the vast, free and open world of FLOSS!
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