The Best of Windows Open Source Software? 930
Boiotos asks: "I'm cooking up a CD-ROM image of excellent Win32 Open Source software to give to friends and family who are intrigued by the whole OSS movement but don't know where to start. I figure once they're used to Mozilla and AbiWord under WinXP, a Linux partition would be less daunting. So fellow Slashdotters, how about it: what Win32 OSS projects deserve a place on the 650 Mb of Solid Gold? Remember, this is for non-geeks and families, so Cygwin is out (even though I love it) and games are in. Extra points, as always, to the obscure but beautiful. Finally, projects targeting only Win32 -- with no Free Unix crossover -- may apply, but will be subject to a strenuous physical test."
Um... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Um... (Score:3, Informative)
CDex (Score:5, Informative)
Don't forget to OGG-vocate vorbis (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:CDex (Score:3, Interesting)
Uh, no. Rather:
CDex -> for converting their CDs to Ogg...
ogg is free as in beer and speech, winamp plays them, and they sound great!
Re:CDex (Score:3, Informative)
CDex fine under XP (Score:3, Informative)
Dude, the last few versions of CDex are just dandy under XP. I suugest you pay a visit to SourceForge and download the latest build. Then you can off MusicMatch to /dev/null (yeah, I KNOW it doesn't exist in Win. That's 'cos Win IS /dev/null).
I have CDex dancing like Gene Kelly on my XP notebook. It's one of the few things on my checklist keeping using Windows (although our in-house Linux guru almost has me convinced...)
If you need help, contact me off the boards.
Trib
Re:CDex (Score:3, Insightful)
I've always kept my eye on CDex and tried newer versions. It's pretty slick. I like the software. I've just always obtained better results from EAC. However, I don't think EAC is open source. Is it? This discussion was supposed to be about OSS, and not just about quality Win32 freeware.
Open Office (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, there is always gimp (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Well, there is always gimp (Score:2)
Another great piece of free unix software with an immature win32 port is Xine - I'd give that a look-see as well.
GIMP is not obvious to Windows users (Score:5, Insightful)
Paint has the right idea in my Book of UI Design for Image Editors - a 'full screen' workspace for your image, tools that are kept outside the image, and menus that are accessed from the top of the screen.
Photoshop take that one step further with tabbed palletes (as this comment [slashdot.org] says, perhaps that can't be replicated exactly without infringing copyright laws) - however, I expect with a few hours of work, someone familar with the GIMP could write a more usable (in this case, yes I mean more Windows-friendly) UI for it, moving all the menus to a MDI style application. Take THAT app and package it on your Windows OSS CD.
GIMP has all the hard work done - the image tools are great, and wingimp claim to have 90% of PS's functionality. And you can't complain about 0% of the price.
Windows people would only get confused by The GIMP. It looks like crap so normal users don't bother figuring out how to use it. Sure, some learning is always a good thing, but the interface is not only (IMO) counter-intuitive, it goes against the established norm, in a way that could be very easily fixed.
Re:GIMP is not obvious to Windows users (Score:3, Informative)
It's pretty good, good enough for most people, and looks like a serious piece of software which makes it good for the "See, open source, free ( in both senses ) software can be very sophisticated." demo.
Unfortunately for my own work the Gimp has some pretty serious shortcomings.
You are limited to only 24 bits, and I really want to work in at 48 bit from 36 bit source.
If there is color management or matching in this or any other program available on Linux I'd like to know about it.
I'm not sure if the gamma and curve control is adequate, although given the first two limitations, it doesn't really matter.
Windows just plain sucks except that you can run photoshop and some scanners on it, and printer support is pretty good.
OSX looks pretty nice, maybe I'll buy a Mac.
But back to the subject. People who want to buy Photoshop buy the hardware to match the software , as in " I want to keep 3 8k by 8s images open at once and do unsharp masks on them in about a half second. Sell me some hardware that will do that. "
For everybody else, the gimp is fine.
BTW, is anybody working on a deep color rewrite of the gimp?
looks great until you press File .. Open (Score:3, Interesting)
and looks like a serious piece of software
gtk on windows looks like the amatureish piece of crud anyone has ever written.
When a Photoshop user sees it and starts laughing the only defence you can come up with is "at least it's free and not warezed"
And then you try and use a 3000x5000 pixel image and watch it die a slow death.
Re:GIMP is not obvious to Windows users (Score:3, Insightful)
I've been using photoshop for a long time and I remember and I remember how daunted I felt when I first used it, but the fact remains that it wasn't the interface that daunted me, it was not knowing what everything did and how to achieve the results I wanted that daunted me.
Gimp on the other hand doesn't conform to any gui guidelines I've ever found. Is NOT intuitive to use. Every other graphics app around:
Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand, Corel, Pixia, Project Dogwaffle etc. all have a similar look and feel - you might not know how everything works, or how to get the best out of them straightaway, but you know where to look to try and you feel comfortable exploring. Even when you first open then, you can simply create a blank page and start drawing or painting as the interfaces are consistent.
Like a lot of other comments have suggested GIMP would seriously benefit from having being a single app/MDI type of thing. As well as perhaps spending some time studying GUI guidelines or even just watching people using GIMP for the first. GIMP doesn't have to be a complete clone of Photoshop to succeed, afterall photoshop isn't perfect by any means, but it just doesn't cut it right now, which is a shame!
Re:GIMP is not obvious to Windows users (Score:5, Insightful)
A few reasons really. Mainly comfort factor and learning curve.
Generally, people like things that look familiar, it gives them a comfortable feeling. If I'm used to one application that uses a certain key sequence to perform a particular task (eg copy something to the clipboard) and then want to do the same thing in another application I'm going to be a lot happier if the key sequence is the same. Whether we like it or not a lot of people are used to the Microsoft way of doing things.
If I know how to do something in one application and want to do the same thing in another application then, if it doesn't do it the same way, I'm going to need some training or to spend some time reading the manuals. A lot of people are used to the Microsoft way of doing things and, to be honest, one of the few good things about Microsoft is at least they have interface consistency accross their apps.
To take another approach. On UNIX (and other OSes for that matter) programs like grep, sed and awk (amongst others) use REGEX. Further they all use the same REGEX. How many problems would it cause if they all used different ways of representing strings?
For most users a PC is just a tool for writing letters, web browsing, playing games or some other task. They don't want to RTFM and if they've had to learn one application they want to be able to apply that knowlege in the next application they have to use that does similar things, not have to learn another way to do the same things.
Stephen
Dont forget... (Score:2, Funny)
Gnucleus (Score:5, Informative)
what is this, Zeropaid? (Score:2, Funny)
What's that Lassie? The troll forgot to hit Post Anonymously before that one?
- Chris
OpenOffice, not AbiWord (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, make sure you find a way of installing good configurations for things (package Mozilla with Orbit for example, or use the new Phoenix browser), and package it all with a simple installer if possible. There's nothing worse than battling ten different types of installer ported from GTK/Qt/Xlib.
Re:OpenOffice, not AbiWord (Score:2, Insightful)
my vote goes to abiword.
oh course, you could just put them both on, since, you know, the whole "choice is good" thing....
Re:OpenOffice, not AbiWord (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to put too fine a point on it, but screw that.
One of the best parts of free software is choice and telling someone to forget Abi is crazy talk. Abi's only like 10-20Mb (I forget how big, maybe less) and makes a PERFECT drop-in solution for someone that wants the ability to create and print small documents (and maybe even big ones). It has a lot less overhead and will be faster on older machines. And since it reads some (but admittedly not all) DOC and RTF files, it may even just work for that occasional Word document that comes along.
It's about choice and freedom. I mean, come on...give people things they need, not what you think they need.
Re:OpenOffice, not AbiWord (Score:3, Insightful)
Try running OpenOffice on my 5 yr old machine. You'll cry. AbiWord runs really decently.
If you compare disk footprint, I see no reason to not provide AbiWord. The Windows installer is something like 5MB. How huge is OpenOffice installer? I know size does not make the software, but that can be a point to take care of if you want to stuff intelligently a medi limited in size (a CD will fill up really quickly).
And AbiWord does pretty much what most MS Word user needs, but freely.
Re:OpenOffice, not AbiWord (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget the GIMP! (Score:2, Redundant)
PuTTY (Score:4, Informative)
Re:PuTTY (Score:4, Insightful)
PuTTY is a work of art. It's free, it's flexible, it's self-contained in one executable (no bloody installers!)...it's the single Windows program that I must have if I'm using a Windows machine.
It can even emulate X11's middle-click-to-paste and select-to-copy mode. Absolutely wonderful.
Re:PuTTY (Score:2)
Though will people new to open source need putty for anything?
Re:PuTTY (Score:4, Funny)
Plus, the registry keeps your home directory free from dot-file clutter. Or INI file clutter, in this case.
Simply put, Registry >> INI files.
Re:PuTTY (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, but I don't know too many non-geeks who have a need for an ssh/telnet client.
Re:PuTTY (Score:2)
However, in minor objection, this is probably a geek tool, as most "family-oriented" PC's don't use much of telnet, SSH, or rlogin nowadays.
I'll throw in a bit of pro-putty to say that almost anyone running a personal website with SSH should put putty somewhere they can get at it from. Whenever I'm away from home and the server needs tuning, it's a short download away - even with dialup (assuming that at least one of the FTP server or Apache are alive).
Sometimes the simple tools are the best - phorm
Re:PuTTY (Score:5, Funny)
I cannot begin to tell you how pleased I am to hear this about my future competition in the job market. What kind of wine do your professors like? I feel like I owe them something!
Re:PuTTY (Score:5, Funny)
Re:PuTTY (Score:5, Funny)
I cannot begin to tell you how pleased I am to hear this about my future competition in the job market.
Competition?
He'll end up being your boss...
Re:PuTTY (Score:3, Insightful)
But definately not for the same reason as you. I don't want Skr1pt K1dd13z sniffing my passwords, and that's what I use ssh for. If you are a CS (or will becoming one), remember: the CLI is your friend. When I was at University, we learned how to use Unix, and we *liked* it. Again: the CLI is your friend.
Every machine on my home network has PuTTY, but just so that I can use it to admin our network server. My family (non-geeks) don't use it. I don't even use PuTTY much either, since my iBook has ssh built-in.
PuTTY doesn't belong on the CD this guy tries to make, but OpenOffice, Mozilla, The GIMP, CDEx most certainly do. Just wondering: is there an opensource media player for Windows? That would be a good one in the list.
Lol, putty. (Score:5, Funny)
Me: Okay Grandma here's Putty, it's for connecting to my servers via ssh/sftp/ftp or telnet.
Grandma: [confusion on face] what was that honey?
Me: Oh come on now Grandma don't be coy. You know you've been secretly sshing into my servers to check your AOL mail via Pine.
Grandma: [with a look on her face like she just smoked a QP of weed] huh?
Me: Grandma? You still in there?
I can see it now Putty for the family, everyone huddled around the PC roasting chestnuts, securing their linux boxes, checking top to see current system utilization, running ps to see if there are any runaway processes...
lol, great post, PuTTY. I've got tears man, tears!
Re:Lol, putty. (Score:5, Funny)
Me: Oh come on now Grandma don't be coy. You know you've been secretly sshing into my servers to check your AOL mail via Pine.
Grandma: No, no dear. Pine [washington.edu] is for wussies. I use mutt [mutt.org].
Grandma: You still in there?
A few ideas. (Score:4, Insightful)
FreeeCiv [freeciv.org]
OpenOffice [openoffice.org]
and WinGimp [wingimp.com]
I would love to hear more from everyone else.
Celestia all the way! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Celestia all the way! (and Stellarium too) (Score:4, Informative)
btw, in my search I did find another very cool program [stellarium.free.fr] which renders the sky accurately and beautifully, which is also quite impressive. You might like it.
Does MAME Count? (Score:4, Informative)
A tool for Revolution (Score:3, Informative)
People are into video games but not into the complexity of modern games.
As for being a "gray" app, there are plenty of freely availabe ROMs at Classic Gaming [classicgaming.com][classicgaming.com].
MAME belongs on the CD.
The only drawback--like most OSS programs--is that it requires a scope of seemingly unrelated skills to get started.
M$ codes for morons. OS Developers code for their peers. Until "coding for morons" becomes the mantra of the movement, the CD will remain simply a demo and not a tool for revolution.
--Chris Uzal, Editor, Cyberista [cyberista.com]
For your IRC friends. (Score:4, Informative)
FreeCiv (Score:2, Informative)
Crossing Lines (Score:2, Interesting)
My computer usage is pretty much limited to games, web browsing, office work, and some image and video editing for school. I'm all for the idea of open source-- Mozilla's my browser of choice-- but installing and configuring Linux is beyond me. And I'm 20, so I've been using computers for about half my life.
In short, open source isn't the roadblock to Linus usage. Just a thought.
Some other important Apps (Score:3, Informative)
Also a very addictive game called crack attack, which runs on windows and linux, and is under the GPL:
Crack Attack [aluminumangel.org]
Other things that you should consider include Python [python.org] and PyGame [pygame.org] (don't forget SDL as well!).
[x]Chat [xchat.org] runs under windows (native), and is the only irc I'd consider using (beats the hell out of mirc).
Putty [greenend.org.uk] is an open source ssh/telnet client. Its possibly the best telnet client for use under windows. Then again, could anything be worse than C:\Windows\Telnet.exe ?
I've probably missed quite a few good ones, but these are things I seriously like.
What's wrong with this picture? (Score:3, Insightful)
virtualdub (Score:5, Informative)
The Unofficial Virtualdub Support Forums (Score:3, Informative)
VirtualDub is in my opinion the best application of its kind, commercial or otherwise. I use it on a daily basis, and it gives me precise and total control over my video processing. Not to mention the unbelievable assembly-optimized speed! VirtualDub is truly the Photoshop of video capture and linear editing.
Those interested in VirtualDub might want to check out the new Unofficial Virtualdub Support Forums [everwicked.com]. They're a good place to get tips and help if you're just getting started with VirtualDub. Even though they're not "official" VirtualDub forums, VirtualDub author Avery Lee does drop by every once in a while.
(Disclosure: I am one of the volunteer moderators on the site, in the newly inaugurated and not-yet-very-active VirtualDub Development Forum [everwicked.com].)
Aggie, a news aggregator (Score:3)
Aggie [bitworking.org] is an open source [opensource.org] news aggregator. Basically, you give it the URL to your favorite RSS feeds, it downloads and parses them, and then builds a web page with the headlines. The really nice thing about it is that it supports RSS autodiscovery [diveintomark.org], so in many cases, you can simply provide the URL to the site itself, and it will find the RSS feed for you.
It does not use the GPL, but its license is considered open source by the OSI definition.
Another caveat is that it is written in C# and thus requires the .NET framework to run, so it isn't portable to other operating systems (not yet [go-mono.com], at least). The upside is that the C# source code is fairly easy to follow, even for a dunce like me.
FreeAmp (Score:3, Informative)
Re:FreeAmp (Score:3, Informative)
Getting better al the time:)
FileZilla (Score:2, Informative)
If you can wait a bit (Score:2, Informative)
A few.... (Score:5, Interesting)
jzip (http://www.bytamin-c.com/Source/) - this is an unzipper, and a great replacement for WinZIP.
For the Windows and Unix world try:
Gimp for windows (http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/)
And don't forget the games!
The game of Go for windows (http://www.public32.com/games/go/)
The Windows GNU gaming zone: (http://wggz.sourceforge.net/)
GIMP! (Score:2)
Mozilla...hrm...Slightly OT (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong: I loooooooooooooooooooooove Mozilla (use it on FreeBSD, got 2002090017 build -- latest I could find) and was really hoping to convert him to Mozilla (and then to LInux....mwuahahahahah!) I'm just wondering if anyone else has had similar problems.
I know this is pretty damned useless as a diagnosis: I work on helpdesk for an ISP, and I always hate it when someone calls and says "My thing doesn't work with my other thing. Why?" I'm just wondering if Mozilla + Printers + Win98 == Kaboom! is a common thing, or just One Of Those Things.
Anyhow, maybe throw in a copy of K-Meleon [sourceforge.net], or Ethereal [ethereal.com] if they want to see what browser everyone else is using :-).
Re:Mozilla...hrm...Slightly OT (Score:2)
TADS, Frotz, and Interactive Fiction (Score:2)
There are several different IF environments -- TADS and Inform are the most popular, playable by TADS [ifarchive.org] and Frotz [geocities.com], respectively.
There are many incredible games for both, but two of my favorites are Babel [wurb.com] and Toonesia [wurb.com]. This type of game loses most of its value if you cheat -- most of the value of the game is in gameplay.
Give it a shot, and rack your brains...and don't get eaten by a grue.
Some unixisms? (Score:3, Informative)
gcc or djgcc or something to let people do free development for windows - kdevelop ported to Win32?
vim!!! (though that may not be a good idea for people who have never seen VI
Does Blender have a win port?
Apache - how to have a safer web server.
VNC - for people who want to do work from home (or abuse works high speed connection)
Re:Some unixisms? (Score:2)
Yes. But it's technically not free yet. The sources "freeing" ceremony (and I believe the first version distributed as source and builds of it) will be Sunday October 13th. Incidentally, I'll be there in Amsterdam for it. :)
GAIM - tabbed conversations (Score:2)
How about... (Score:2, Interesting)
Or is this some ploy from another MS shill, looking for ideas, and/or converts to drink yet more of the kookaid....
dia (Score:3, Informative)
The home page is at http://www.lysator.liu.se/~alla/dia/ [lysator.liu.se]
Don't forget the games! (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting, but that's a good start. Hopefully other posters will list their faves...
PHP Edit (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.phpedit.net/ [phpedit.net]
Quite a good prog - even though I dont use windows anymore.
Beyond that Quanta is a great program that does the same stuff - but for linux.
Derek
Virtual Dub (Score:2)
Virtual Dub is much more stable and its interface is much more streamlined than most other free software. Plus it has probably the most robust AVI read/write code ever offered. Out-of-spec files that crash other video programs, Virtual Dub chews 'em up and spits 'em out.
Re:Virtual Dub (Score:3, Informative)
MPEG is sort of outside VirtualDub's scope; it is first and foremost an *AVI* editing program (not a general video editing program).
To my knowledge there is no single software package that can handle AVI, Quicktime, and MPEG equally well. (Premiere claims to handle all three, but its Quicktime and MPEG support have serious problems; Apple's Quicktime also claims to handle all three, but its AVI support is severely lacking).
Plus, I don't think it is possible to distribute a free MPEG-2 codec since there are active patents on it... (Apple distributes Quicktime 6 without MPEG-2 support, and makes you pay $20 or $30 extra for it)
the K-Meleon web browser (Score:2)
K-Meleon [sourceforge.net] is a nice little Win32 web browser that uses the Gecko rendering engine from the Mozilla project. Though still just a bit rough around the edges, it is an impressive piece of work; it is quite fast, and very customizable. The latest beta versions include tabbed browsing, a feature I can't live without. If they add URL autocomplete, the browser will be very suitable for day-to-day use.
The development team appears to be rather small, and they release infrequently. I recommend grabbing the last beta release [sf.net], and not the last public release, which is old.
I believe that K-Meleon is released under the GPL.
Virtualdub is best of breed GPL software... (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't forget the eye candy... (Score:3, Informative)
It certainly isn't in the same league as Mozilla and OpenOffice, but you'll definately have room for it on your CD (only 85 KB).
And yes it's the same utility I've been pimping in my sig for months now.
Vim editor (Score:4, Interesting)
Jabber (Score:5, Informative)
Many open source Jabber [jabber.org] clients are available, so maybe you can get your friends to use open source software with an open instant messaging protocol!
Personally, I use PSI [sourceforge.net] when using Windows, but there are others out there that may be just as good. I do believe, though, that Psi is cross-platform, which may be a plus.
Amaya (Score:2)
Amaya's been around for a long time, but not many people know about it, which is a real shame. It's a nice HTML editor, and produces very clean, HTML 4.0 compliant code. It supports CSS, and many other related web technologies. Check it out.
What I use... (Score:4, Interesting)
OpenOffice.org
Miranda ICQ
Mozilla
Putty
XNview
Audacity
TuxRacer
GLTron
Povray
FreeCiv
Kakepad
FileZilla
Xchat
CDex
All GPL (I believe), and hopefully I didn't include anything too geeky.
Here's a good place to start (Score:5, Informative)
The BYU UUG (Score:5, Interesting)
During the summer, I suggested [mail-archive.com] to my local Unix Users Group that we put together a campaign on campus dubbed "Software for Starving Students." The idea is that we would advocate the use of Free Software among the student body at BYU.
The ball got rolling, and we put together a CD image [byu.edu] that we burned and handed out to students from a booth in the student center. We selected OpenOffice, Mozilla, The Gimp, BZFlag, and AbiWord in the most recent incarnation.
Last week, we gave out 400 copies of the CD from the booth. I mentioned to the group that if we did the math the way Microsoft does math [microsoft.com], with each disc, we saved a student around $1,300. The 400 copies from last week combined with the 180 copies we gave out during the summer comes to around 3/4 of a million dollars with of savings to the student body! :-)
I, of course, took every opportunity to explain to passerby who accepted the disc about the multiple meanings of the word "free." The club president was making people promise to copy the software and give it to their friends in exchange for receiving the disc. Our Linux Install Fest last Saturday kept the classroom packed with students who heard about Linux and wanted us to install it on their computers for them.
I'm happy to say that we're [byu.edu] doing our part to keep Linux from getting "stomped." [slashdot.org]
In the Spirit of Pimping one's own project.... (Score:3, Funny)
And there are some lonely evenings when - waaaait....Let's not go there......
Egoboo (Score:5, Interesting)
The last time I checked (which was several months ago) Egoboo wasn't quite ready for prime time, but it's fun enough that I doubt anybody will care and the installation and setup was painless. It's certainly a project to keep an eye on.
Not Quake 2 (Score:3, Informative)
Best software that I've seen is.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Please Be Aware! (Score:5, Informative)
Check out the OpenCD project at
http://www.theopencd.org/ [theopencd.org]
You are free to work on your on project of course, but I HATE to see duplication of effort.
VNC for remote control (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/
Ghostview/GSview (Score:5, Informative)
Here's [wisc.edu] the Ghostscript, home page, and the GSview-specific [wisc.edu] page.
Vim. No, I'm serious. (Score:5, Informative)
1) Every UNIX machine in the world has vi on there somewhere. Emacs may or may not be installed, depending on the preference of the sysadmin. But if you at least know four or five basic editing & navigation commands in vi, then you'll be fine if you wind up trying to use a strange UNIX system somewhere.
2) You can actually describe it in a way that won't be horrifically intimidating. Tell them it's a replacement for Notepad with a lot more features. And you can use the mouse if you want, but there's keyboard shortcuts for everything: once you learn them, you'll be twice as fast with Vim as with any other editor.
3) Vim's built-in tutorial (":help tutor") -- I wouldn't even mention it as a possibility without this one.
Yeah, a lot of people will hate Vim and run back to Notepad. But if they try it and get at least as far as finishing the tutorial, they won't be COMPLETELY lost when they first try Linux and have to edit a text file.
Why vim is a bad idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Your last line is completely wrong: a user does not have to get familiar with vim to avoid being completely lost when they have to edit a text file on Linux. The fact that you believe otherwise means that I ask you to stay away from potential Linux converts.
No person coming from the Windows or Mac world has ever seen a moded editor in the style of vi. Every other editor in the world, from Notepad to Emacs, lets the user just start typing and the text gets entered correctly. Like everyone who's been in the Unix world a long time, I can use vi if I must, but I'd rather not. Emacs has many flaws as well; its choice of keybindings is rather antique, but at least they are changeable. Better still to give new users a decent text-editing widget.
If the user you inflict vim on thinks that she'll have to put up with such things on Linux, you're not going to get a convert.
vi/vim should be available for those who explicitly want it, but we don't need any new converts to the cult.
Re:Vim? No, no, no, NO! (Score:4, Insightful)
It may not be for you but do you consider your computer skills average? If you spend some time teaching computer skills to Normal People, you'll notice how even the concept of a file or directory structure is difficult.
People are lazy. They don't bother learning things unless they have to. Most people will gladly learn and use AbiWord instead of WordStar. Not because AbiWord has more features. It's just easier.
Vim will take over the world when most people stop using elevators and opt for climbing the stairs.
Can you post the ISO somewhere? (Score:5, Insightful)
WinVim! (Score:5, Funny)
KFG
The BEST screensavers == GPL (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.reallyslick.com/
OpenOffice. (Score:3, Informative)
Liquid War. Gameplay: 10, Graphics: 3, Overall: 11 (Score:4, Interesting)
Freshmeat (Score:3, Informative)
litestep (Score:3, Informative)
LiteStep is a replacement desktop environment released under the GPL.
I have nine desktops, can drag windows between them, I have cpu and ram meters, quick-launch buttons and shortcuts, and can even drag windows from other destkops anywhere (don't think you can do that in most desktop envs).
with litestep and mozilla, unless I have a windows [file] explorer open, there's no MS except the system (kernel, services) running - which means with the multiple-instances-of-explorer option, I need not worry about [i]explore[r].exe crashing.
and (obviously) there is theming [litestep.com]
other GPL windows projects of interest:
FreeCiv [freeciv.org] Civilization (one and/or two+) clone
Gaim [sourceforge.net] AIM/yahooim/msnim/icq/jabber/... client
and the already mentioned cygwin, vim, gimp, mozilla.
if you hunt for it, there's a cygwin version of gvim that allows unix paths, etc. but uses X.
Xfree86 for cygwin [cygwin.com] is now prime-time (in installer) and works really well with windowmaker and openbox, but lacks integration with ms windows as the wm (the way eXceed, winaXe, XwinPro, and Xthin do). please, please contribute to that somebody!
Streamripper for Winamp (Score:3, Interesting)
Seth
PySol (Score:3, Informative)
Solitaire, written in Python. Better than any other solitaire games I've seen (including some commercial). There are something like 200 different solitaire games built in.
It can be found here [oberhumer.com].
There isn't a windows build on the page, it's python, dude.
Re:Religion? (Score:4, Funny)
Friends, ig-NORE the sireen call of the pay-to-play heathen that lurk in the hedgerows, clinging to the darkness, roaring like a lion, SEEKING WHOM THEY MAY DEVOUR! Open thy hearts, OPEN THY SOURCE! Come to the cleansing fountain of forgiveness from closed-sources. Do not let these Philistines halt thy progress! Come into the LIGHT! COME INTO THE LIIIIIGHT!
I neeed a nap.
Re:Religion? (Score:5, Insightful)
Others, to a degree myself, are offended by Microsoft's (and other) commercial software company's moral bankruptsy and their screwing of users, and feel morally compelled to at least let others know that they do not have to put up with it. That nobody has to use Microsoft, and that for the most part to not do so involves very little loss and significant gain.
Some people are just cheap, or truly low on money, and think they must choose between rent and important software. These people can also benefit greatly from OSS if they only knew about it.
Still other people, such as aspiring programmers, often have a tough time doing any real programming in Windows because it's so damn complex and crufty, and some eventually lose interest and leave for a different interest. Some of these people would also benefit greatly from being able to see the source to their programming tools--how they actually work--rather than reading unnavigable gigabytes of MSDN documentation to find info on how to work around some obscure bug or "feature" in their tools.
It isn't a religion, it's philanthropy.
Not with bannerblind! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:VNC (Score:5, Interesting)