One of the biggest issues for students, businesses and numerous other individuals have been the fact that software continues to be the key tool of productivity yet the cost is so high that it becomes a barrier to obtaining these tools of the trade so to speak, for many who just can’t justify spending that much money when they still have rent to pay. Think about it for a second or even look through your computer and see how many pieces of software that we actually use on a second to minute and hourly to daily basis. Information technology (IT) has always been a key factor in making our lifestyles more efficient (really?) but at the same time at what cost?
Evolution
I think we all use Microsoft Word, Excel and all those other office applications (or for designers, Adobe/Macromedia products) on a overzealous daily basis. We eat and breathe / live and die by these tools that Microsoft developed. Prior to this, it was the classic WordPerfect and Lotus 123. What has all of this meant? Essentially, it is dependency. This ironically creates a gap between our ability to adapt or find new ways of doing things, and our mind which is stuck in a terror mode when we cannot seem to get our proprietary software to work.
Now, what’s wrong with that – you ask? Well nothing really. It has been a legitimate way of doing business for decades or centuries for that matter. Or at least nothing that significant until we take a closer look at the path we have chosen for ourselves. What do we do when something does not work? What do we do when there is a bug in the software? What happens when we simply can’t run this software anymore because well, technology has once again rocketed forward leaving us in the dust!? The answer is pretty simple. It is to eliminate that dependency, it is to push the relationship between what we use and what we do into a realm of interdependency. Interdependence can be derived from marxist theory, and many political figures of the past but really, if we take a look at science … all it comes down to is a symbiotic relationship.
Revolution
There are a lot of people to credit in the push for interdependence. However the biggest push for the ideals of interdependence must be credited to those who laid the foundations to open source software. It’s rather a fascinating history and I encourage people to read about the differences between free software and the open source movement. The major breakthrough for both the free software and open source software movements (from a public perspective) had to be the introduction of the Linux open source operating system. For those who don’t know about it, think of it as an alternative to Microsoft Windows. (Just as a note: I fount it very amusing that Microsoft actually posts an ad on Google to persuade anyone who types in “Linux” into the search engine, to read why Windows is better than Linux. I actually believe that each have their uses but Microsoft finds Linux enough of a threat apparently that it warrants a major Google top placement ad.) Linux was a breakthrough because suddenly the world found that it was feasible for an operating system (and software) to be developed and improved upon by a world-wide community. This has led to a higher level of innovation and software that was more in-tune with many users as the users often had direct input to the developers. This software is different than the typical copyrighted software, read on if you’re interested.
But enough of that already … the point is … do you really want to be stuck with the software you use now? Some of you may choose yes, others may say no. There’s no denying that some pieces of software are better than others. Regardless, for those with not so much money or small businesses who want to do things that people with fancy proprietary software can but cannot afford those crazy expensive packages as part of their startup cost … well here is a list I have compiled of some very useful applications. I understanding learning how to use software is a barrier in itself, but I think it would be better that we all know many ways of doing one thing using a variety of tools, rather than solely using one piece of software and creating a dependency that is not beneficial to anyone.
There are definitely many many more but these are key:
Open Source Software for Everyone
Paint.NET 3.0 – Just released. A photo editor
GIMP – A popular open source raster image editor
Inkscape – A popular open source vector image editor
OpenOffice – The alternative to Microsoft Office
Mozilla Firefox – Your alternative to Internet Explorer
Mozilla Thunderbird – Your alternative to Outlook Express
For more, Wikipedia (also open source) has a continually growing list of open source software packages.
What’s next? Web applications … beware the end of the software world as we know it.
technorati tags:open, source, software, interdependence, openoffice, inkscape, gimp, paint.net, firefox, mozilla, wikipedia, microsoft, adobe, politics, theory, web, developing, technology, production
