I've always been a big advocate of open source software, especially as a broke college student. This list provides some of the open source software I have personally used over the years that can be utilized by students or hobbyists instead of expensive proprietary software. Many of these will be familiar with people, but I still find myself running into people at school who have no idea that these programs are out there. I have tried to list programs that work on both Windows and Mac OSX, and I've included a special section on Linux at the end. I'll start off by giving a brief overview of what open source means and then I'll jump into some categories that students are likely to encounter.
What is open source software?
In very basic terms, open source software is a program that has had its source code, the lines of programming that make up the software, released to the public. The source code can be licensed out in many ways, but generally its made available so that anyone with the know how can contribute to the project or "fork" the project and make their own starting with the base source code. While not always the case, the vast majority of open source projects are provided to individual users for free (and any listed here are free for individual use).Open source alternatives can be found for many of the expensive proprietary programs released by companies. One must be aware though, that open source software is often built by hobbyists that don't have the time or resources that larger corporations do. This means that open source alternatives are sometimes not always as polished, or they may not have the most cutting edge features as their closed source counterparts, but because they are community driven they are always improving and for the price (once again: free!) it's hard to beat.
Office & Desktop Publishing
Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice -- Both of these programs originate from an office suite known as StarOffice, a proprietary program developed by StarDivision. A year after Sun Microsystems took over StarDivision the source code to StarOffice was released, leading to the creation of OpenOffice. After Oracle subsequently took over Sun, they continued to develop the software, but a majority of their developers left over management concerns and formed The Document Foundation. The Document Foundation forked OpenOffice and created LibreOffice. OpenOffice has since been licensed under the Apache License, and Apache developers continue the main work on the project.
Now that I have thoroughly confused you, let me talk about what these programs do. Both suites offer text editors, spreadsheets, databases, and slides. While intended to be used with OpenDocument filetypes (which Microsoft Office can open as well) both suites can open and save in Microsoft's proprietary filetypes with some caveats. The programs (especially LibreOffice it seems) sometimes have problems with the newer XML based files (so .docx, .pptx, etc.).
Since they originate from the same original source, the two programs are very similar. They have, however, began to grow apart since their split. Since the majority of the original developers went to work on LibreOffice its development has tended to be a bit faster, but AoO is still chugging along. Personally, I use LibreOffice, but I suggest you check out both and see which one works best for you.
Scribus -- This one might be a bit more niche that other items on this list. Scribus is a desktop publishing suite comparable to Adobe InDesign or QuarkXpress. It supports both SVG and EPS graphic imports, outputs to PDF, and more technical things like CMYK colorspace and spot color. Journalism students, or people wanting to put together something like a newsletter or even a self-published book or magazine might want to give this one a gander.
Web browsers
Windows and Mac OSX both ship with their own web browsers in the form of Internet Explorer and Safari respectively, but their are several open source options out there too.
Firefox -- Mozilla's Firefox is probably one of the most well known open source web browsers out there. Operating across the three major computer platforms as well as mobile devices, Firefox is fast and secure with many customization options in the form of extentsions. Recent additions include information syncing across devices when you log into the browser.
Chromium -- While Google's Chrome web browser is not technically open source, the Chromium project on which it is based is. Chrome is a fast, stable, secure, web browser that syncs across devices through your Google account. It has risen to be one of the most popular choices in the market. Chromium is essentially the same as Chrome, but it lacks some proprietary plugins and software that Google adds, such as Pepper Flash. All of these can easily be restored by downloading the plugins on your own.
Midori -- Midori is a super lightweight web browser that runs on WebKit (the same engine that Safari uses and that Chrome used until recently). It works great on older computers, but while it passes the ACID3 test its HTML5 compatibility score is somewhat low. It's licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public Licence, so it's potentially not as open source as other options. Though primarily a Linux web browser (it comes default on several distributions) a Windows version is also available.
Photo and Image Editing
These programs are comparable to well known Adobe programs such as Photoshop or Illustrator. While a professional photographer or digital media student might need some of the more advanced features found in the closed source programs, these listed here will more than satisfy the needs of people wanting to edit things like vacation photos or students needing to spice up a project or presentation.
The GIMP -- The GNU Image Manipulation Program, otherwise known as GIMP, is an open source alternative to things like Adobe Photoshop or Corel PaintShop Pro. Along with basic tools like cropping, color adjustments, exposure, and the like, the GIMP supports things like layers, masks, clone brush, adjustment curves, and filters. With additional plugins it can also edit RAW camera files. One drawback of the GIMP that should be pointed out is that it currently does not support editing in a CMYK colorspace, which hinders it for printing images.
Inkscape -- Inkscape is an open source alternative to Adobe Illustrator. It can be used to create vector drawings. Out of the box it can import Scalable Vector Graphics (which Inskscape is mainly designed to work with), PDFs, Abode Illustrator files, and most raster filetypes. With additional plugins it can import Postscript and Corel filetypes just to name a few.
darktable -- darktable is a photo workflow program similar to Adobe Lightroom. Lightroom itself is a bit more of an obscure project compared to Photoshop, so an explanation might be in order. Lightroom provides photographers a way to easily organize and access their photo library. It also has a "develop" mode that features some of Photoshops most used features for photographs in a much cheaper package. darktable provides similar functionality in a free and open source platform. Unlike other items on this list, darktable is focused more on Linux than other operating systems. A Mac version is available, but currently a Windows build has not been released.
Digikam -- Similar to darktable, Digikam is a powerful open source suite of photography tools that allows users to organize their photo collection, tag photos, batch convert, and non-destructively edit photos with a built in editor. Though primarily a Linux program, versions are available for Mac and Windows as well.
Luminance HDR -- Luminance is used to create high-dynamic range photos from multiple exposures. It works in a similar manner to the Photomatix proprietary software, though you might find you need to stack and blend a few different versions of tone-mapped photos in the GIMP to get your desired effect.
Tutorials, forums, and plugin repositories for these programs are all over the place online, so if you find yourself wondering how to do something with one of these programs a quick search will probably yield answers. I should note, that while I said a professional photographer might find these tools lacking compared to their closed source counterparts their are many photographers that have decided to go completely open source with their work. Many of these "FOSStographers", as they are known, have blogs showcasing tips and tricks to get the same images from these programs as you would their closed-source counterparts. A good place to start is reddit's FOSS photography community.
Video editing
Unlike images and photos, I've found the video world a bit more sparse when it comes to open source alternatives outside of Linux. There are a few I've used though that I'll mention here.
Avidemux -- Avidemux is a simple video editor that can handle simple cutting, filtering, and encoding tasks. It works on both Mac and Windows systems.
VirtualDub -- Similar to Avidemux, VirtualDub is another simple video editor for cutting, filtering, and encoding work. It also supports a host of plugins that can expand functionality. Windows only.
Lightworks -- Lightworks is a professional grade non-linear video editor that has been in development since 1989, and has been used to create several Hollywood blockbusters. Putting it on this list is cheating somewhat, because while it is free it is not currently open source (though they have promised a code release in the near future). A stable version has been released for Windows, and Mac and Linux are on their roadmap. If you are shooting DSLR video you might have some codec issues, but increased support is planned in future releases.
Blender -- I wasn't quite sure where to stick Blender as it can be used to create both 3D stills and animation. Blender can be used for 3D modeling, skinning, texturing, fluid, smoke, and particle simulation, rendering, video editing, compositing, and even includes a built in game-engine. Blender is a fantastically powerful software with a strong supporting community.
Audio editing
Want to make a song or neaten up audio for a project? Fear not, there is an open source solution.
Audacity -- Audacity is a digital audio editor and recorder. It's comparable to a program like Sony SoundForge or Acid. It features multi-track editing, support for a wide range of sound formats (though some only after installing the ffmpeg library), and sample based noise removal. It's one of the most popular downloads on Sourceforge.
Geographic Information Systems
This one is certainly a niche, but it's related to my field and I know several people that regularly work with GIS programs. ESRI and their ArchGIS software are hands down the industry leaders at the moment, but there are free and open source solutions that can compete with them.
GRASS and Quantum GIS-- The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System is a powerful GIS suite capable of handling raster, topological vector, image processing, and graphic data that was developed in part by the US Army Corps of Engineers. While GRASS can be used on its own, many users choose to access its tools through another program, such as Quantum GIS. Another free and open source GIS suite, Quantum is not only a standalone GIS application it connects to other open source GIS programs as well to give users a wide array of functions.
While ArcGIS might be the norm, support for Quantum is growing. It's a powerful program that can be and is used by professionals.
Marble -- Marble is an open source desktop globe project similar to Google Earth. While not as polished or powerful as Earth, its completely open source, with a lot of its data coming from the OpenStreetMap project.
The Whole Shebang, Operating Systems
If you're excited about what the world of open source software has to offer and you're ready to slip from the the bonds of proprietary systems for good, you have to look no further than Linux. Linux is a free and open source operating system first released in 1991 by +Linus Torvalds.
While popular in commercial and academic applications, Linux remained relatively obscure to most home users. That has begun to change over the last decade, and many people now find Linux to be their operating system of choice. In fact, there is a good chance that you have a device running Linux in your pocket right now: Google's popular Android OS is Linux based.
Android aside, the growing rise in Linux's popularity is in part thanks to the effort of a company known as Canonical. Canonical set out to make a "Linux for human beings", and their Debian-based distribution of Linux known as Ubuntu has become wildly successful. Through Ubuntu, Canonical has presented a version of Linux that is familiar and accessible to the everyday person while still retaining the potential for customization and power of Linux for more experienced users.
There are many powerful open source programs that aren't on the list above because they only work on Linux. I would have to write another post to do them justice. Instead I'll provide you a few links to my favorite versions of Linux. There are plenty of guides out there to get you started if you're ready to take the plunge into a fully free and open source world.
Additionally their are two other Linux-based operating systems that bear special mention.
Androidx86 -- As noted above, Android is a Linux-based operating system. The core of the OS is maintained through the Android Open Source Project, which provides developers and device manufactures a base to build and customize their own versions such as Samsung's TouchWhiz. If you love Android, and would like to run it on a laptop, the folks over at Androidx86 have you covered. This port allows Android to run on just about any device built on x86 architecture (so Intel and AMD processors), and several builds geared specifically at Acer and HP netbooks are available for download.
ChromiumOS -- Much like the Chrome/Chromium browser relationship discussed above, an open source version of of Google's ChromeOS is available. ChromeOS is a super-lightweight, cloud focused OS that powers Google's Chromebook laptops. It's essentially the Chrome browsers with a few extra features. If you have an old laptop sitting around that you'd like to turn into a Chromebook, check out ChromiumOS. The most popular builds are Hexxeh's Vanilla builds, which can be downloaded here.
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I hope this list is useful. I'd like to keep it updated as new programs come out. If you know of a great open source program for Windows or Mac that students might find useful, please tell me about it in the comments.
A word of warning: Open source software is a great alternative to expensive proprietary programs, but sometimes your courses will require features only available to the closed source variety. Make sure you read your syllabus and assignment instructions, and talk with your professor about their expectations before using any of this software for school assignments.
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