Ask Slashdot: Good, Useful Free Software For Gifts? 377
First time accepted submitter Jeng writes "I'm planning on sending flash drives to friends and family as stocking stuffers. Rather than just send a blank drive, I'm looking for what good useful free software that I can load on it — from system utilities and encryption software to fun little games." We've asked similar questions before, but software keeps getting better, and so do the prices on flash drives. So what would you give as a gift this holiday season?
Bootable USB (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Let's see: (Score:2, Interesting)
Battle for Wesnoth
Tyrian 2000
Collection of ebooks via Project Gutenberg
That would keep someone out of trouble for a good while.
Re:It's a ridiculous idea (Score:5, Interesting)
> Give other people what THEY want, not what YOU think would be cool.
Oh bullpoop. The guy is giving out USB sticks. Very handy things for almost anyone to get in their stocking. He just wants to prepopulate em with some helpful stuff. Something you can't do with closed software but you can easily do with Free Software.
And yes, plenty of people give gifts based on their particular passion. Apple folk will tend to give out iProducts. Would they give one to somebody they KNOW isn't going to use it? Hopefully not, but a lot of people on their list would so they do. What is the difference?
Stick OO.o on there of course. And Firefox, Chrome, etc. And why not Gimp, Blender, and friends. All run Windows, why not spread em around. Will everyone use them? Probably not, but a few might and those that don't can just hit delete.
I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated them. (Score:5, Interesting)
A few years ago, I gave my friends and family gifts like this. They each got a 256 MB USB stick with Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice.org and some other open source software I thought they might find useful. Well, they didn't appreciate it at all.
Right after getting it, one of my nieces threw it back at me, calling it useless, and then she called me a "nerd ass faggot". I found out later that her brothers deleted everything on theirs without even bothering to try them.
My older relatives had no idea at all what they were. Some of them thought they were supposed to put them on their keychains, as decorations!
I'm not sure who, but some of my relatives didn't even bother to bring them home with them after they left the Christmas gathering. I found several of them lying on the floor after everyone had left for the night.
I hoped it would be a learning experience for them, but it was really a learning experience for me. Most people don't give a fuck about open source software. They just don't care. And they surely don't want to receive it as a gift.
free or Free? (Score:5, Interesting)
Just give them uTorrent - the gift that keeps on giving!
Seriously, though, are we talking about freeware or Free Open Source Software? There's a lot of great freeware out there; applications like Picasa, utilities like Piriform's set, games like Cave Story (a.k.a. Doukutsu Monotogari). I hope you're not ruling out closed source, since your friends and family really won't care about the difference.
Also, you should probably start by looking for popular downloads on sites like FileHippo, SourceForge, and even (groan) Download.com. There are also quite a few commercial games that were later released as freeware or free-to-play; Team Fortress 2 is a prime example.
Humble Bundles (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Let's see: (Score:5, Interesting)
I'd add a few suggestions:
1950s or so cigarette commercials (Score:4, Interesting)
I used to have a zip file with a ton of free-use black and white cigarette/tabacco commercials. I'm sure they still exist on torrent sites. They're free and *legal*, and some will make your head spin in three different directions all at once. Then they can delete them and use your gift as a gift ;)
How about other stuff - like family photos? (Score:4, Interesting)
Back in the 80s I did a Commodore 64 Christmas Disk for three years, one thing that was good about it is that I know everyone who I gave it to had a Commodore 64, and thus everything to use the disk. Now ids a different matter, you have people running potentially three platforms (Linux, Mac, Windows) with several versions as well as varying system specs. Not that FOSS software isn't a bad idea, I just hope you have time to support all those people you give it to as there will be issues depending on thier OS, and technical skills.
I have a better idea; A couple years ago I did that but included family photos, etc. stuff my family would be interested in regardless of the platform.
Besides photos, also think about video clips of the family and kids, and you can throw in PD or CC music , e-books, art, etc.
LiMP (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux Media Player and some CC music and movies.
Did this in '08 for my friends, still gets talked about - I still get voicemail with "Got any more of that free live music?"
Wikipedia? (Score:5, Interesting)
How about the Wikipedia database? Only 7GB (compressed) and will provide many hours of bedside reading.
Or, if you're feeling particularly generous, give them the full database including all revisions - only 28GB compressed with 7-Zip, so will fit nicely on a 32GB flash drive. This expands to over 5TB of data, so will provide many more hours of exciting reading.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download#English-language_Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think I believe him either; the general gist of the story sounds plausible, but the details make it seem fabricated, especially the bit about the "nerd ass faggot", people leaving them lying on the floor, etc. Unless this guy comes from an incredibly rude family, most people are polite enough to accept gifts as-is, and if they don't like them keep their mouth shut and dispose of the gift later. One kid not being polite is certainly believable (kids haven't learned all their manners yet), but multiple adults? Doubtful. Moreover, he didn't say what year this was, but I'd assume that at that time, 256MB USB drives were considered decently large. If someone gave me a 2GB USB drive (today considered fairly small) loaded with pirated Windows software, for instance, even though I have no use for Windows software I'd still take the USB drive and just erase it and use it for my own purposes. You can never have too many of those things.
Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the (Score:5, Interesting)
*Slightly* off topic, but let's face it: you'd do something like that because, deep down inside (if nothing else), you're hoping they'll fire up the software on that USB stick and say, "wow! And it's free??? Gimme some more o' dis!"
If you're trying to spread the news about Free Software, the only effective way to do it is to SHOW them. Most of the people whom I've converted to Linux did so after watching me use KDE (formerly) and Gnome (more recently). The multiple desktops are absolutely intriguing to a power user; it won't be long before he/she starts thinking, "hmmm ... I could use that." The fact that you're not playing "whack-a-mole" with a dozen pop ups each time you boot is impressive, too, as is the fact that, with a good distro, updates are centralized, controlled and politely done, with rarely a need to reboot.
Of course, I go one step further. If they want to see Windows, I've installed Windows in a Virtual Box. I can bring up Windows as a nice, well-behaved little application one one of my multiple desktops, where it stays out of the way until I really want or need it ..... the way it SHOULD BE. (Evil. Grin.)
I would not do this. (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think this is a particularly good gift. Giving people free software on top of a cheap thumb drive (even giant ones are a dime a dozen now) feels little more than a silent push to free software from whatever they might be currently using.
If you want to give them a gift, give them something like a copy of Minecraft--something they can't just download for themselves.
Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the (Score:2, Interesting)
This actually sounds like a pretty typical American family event to me. I've seen the same stuff happen at my family's Christmas events in California, as well as at my wife's family's events in New Hampshire. Kids will be very vocal about gifts they don't like, especially the teenagers. They'll throw tantrums and cuss if they get something they don't really want. It isn't limited to the children, either. Some of the adults will exhibit similar behavior, although it's often more passive. Leaving unwanted gifts behind is just the kind of passive-aggressive attack that they'll perform. I know this can happen because my wife and I gave her adult sister and her sister's husband some wine last year, but apparently it wasn't expensive enough for them. They showed disappointment when they received it, and they left it behind, although they did keep some more expensive wine they were given by other relatives. We ended up taking it instead.
Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the (Score:5, Interesting)
Why not load a bunch of old family photos that they may not have.
Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow, that's weird. I guess good manners and politeness are just a thing of the past for America now.
As for the wine, I'd be perfectly happy with cheaper wine. I've tried many cheap and expensive wines, and have found an inverse relationship between the cost and how much I like it. I guess I don't have enough of an "acquired taste". :-P
Re:I gave gifts like this once. Everyone hated the (Score:4, Interesting)
wine: Something that appreciates in value as your willingness to say "Oh, now that's interesting!" increases.
Send them a blank drive that's really blank (Score:5, Interesting)
I just bought four SanDisk USB drives, in original packaging, at Costco. I had to clean them of junk before using them. They even had autorun files and some kind of installer.
Send the guy an empty drive that's really empty. That's a real gift today.