Free and Open Software

Here's a short list of open source software that we'll be using, helping people learn about, and promoting. These were chosen specifically because they all have ported versions for all common operating systems, even though we are strong advocates of Linux, all computer users can benefit from the open source movement.

• Firefox - Open Development web-browser started by the Mozilla foundation, standards compliant and cross platform. It's a more secure web browser than Internet Explorer or Safari, and has a huge number of contributor built plug-ins.

• Open Office - A free and Open alternative to Microsoft Office, provides a powerful word processor, presentation designer, and spreadsheet program. Open Office will read almost any other office system's documents, acting as a sort of universal translator for file formats.

• ClamAV - One of the best AntiVirus programs available on the net. It's unobtrusive, can be set to scheduled scans, and automatically updates. There is a plugin for firefox which triggers ClamAV to scan any file you download for viruses before you open it.

• GIMP - Gnu Image Manipulation Program, It's a very powerful image editor capabale of most of the functions that programs like photoshop provide.

• Pidgin - Universal Instant Message and Chat program, lightweight and accompanied by a host of nifty plugins, including some neat encryption tools.

For more info on FOSS software, checkout:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open_source_software
http://www.fsf.org/
http://creativecommons.org/