Open Source Software - Resource

Welcome to this page on Open Source brought to you in honor of Software Freedom Day 2024.

You can check out some of the online events in honor of Software Freedom at: https://digitalfreedoms.org/en/sfd/events?view=map

Where To Find Free and Open Source Software

Table of Contents:

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In General
Multimedia
Software for Creative Works
Portable and Mobile Computing
Software for Social Media
File Formats
Programming Languages
Educational Software
Health and Nutrition
Green Machines
Accessibility
Security
Open Source Collections
Creative Commons, Public Domain and Other Open Licensed Multimedia Resources

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In General

Some good places to look for the best in Open Source Software:

http://portableapps.com/
http://sourceforge.net/
http://schoolforge.net/
http://alternativeto.net/
http://www.opensourcesoftwaredirectory.com/
http://www.distasis.com/cpp/dlin.htm - Open Source software recommendations for older machines
http://www.distasis.com/cpp/osrclist.htm - More Open Source program suggestions
http://www.distasis.com/cpp/web.htm - Open Source programs for the web
http://www.distasis.com/write/write.htm - Open Source programs for writing
http://www.distasis.com/cpp/gmail.htm - Tips, Tricks and Open Source tools for use with Google Mail
https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/ - Lists of Free, Libre and Open Source Software, libraries, Creatives Commons and public domain multimedia and other resources.

Ways to run Linux or Unix programs on Windows systems:

http://www.cygwin.com - Linux-like environment for Windows making POSIX ports of software more feasible on Windows
https://www.midipix.org/ - Midipix - Posix compatibility layer for use with musl C library and GNU C/C++ compiler on Windows
http://sourceforge.net/projects/portableubuntu/ - Portable Ubuntu (Ubuntu Linux for Windows users)
https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/24895.html - Article on using RDP with WSL on Windows.

Multimedia - Music and Video Programs

http://www.distasis.com/recipes/music.htm - How to make music with your PC
http://www.distasis.com/recipes/pdmuse.htm - Places to find public domain sheet music
http://www.distasis.com/recipes/av.htm - How to make videos with your PC
http://www.distasis.com/cpp/os/mms.htm - Slide show on multimedia

Some utilities to record your screen or create tutorials:

http://camstudio.org/ - CamStudio - Record screen activity (video) and audio on your Windows machine
http://xvidcap.sourceforge.net - Xvidcap - Desktop recording for machines with X Windows
http://recordmydesktop.sourceforge.net - Record My Desktop - Desktop recording for POSIX machines
https://www.videolan.org/vlc/ - VLC
http://www.imagemagick.org - ImageMagick - Cross-plaform, capture screen shots, also a powerful command line graphics editor/converter
https://github.com/rr-/shot/ - Shot - cross-platform command line screenshot software

Cross-platform slide shows

http://www.w3.org/Talks/Tools/Slidy - Slidy
http://www.meyerweb.com/eric/tools/s5 - S5

Software for Creative Works

Graphics programs

http://pulkomandy.tk/projects/GrafX2 - Grafx2 - Cross-platform bitmap paint program
https://sourceforge.net/projects/lodepaint/ - LodePaint - Painting program and image editor
http://www.tuxpaint.org/ - TuxPaint - Cross-platform drawing program
http://rendera.sourceforge.net/ - Rendera - Cross-platform graphics editor
http://mtpaint.sourceforge.net/ - mtPaint - simple to use graphics editor and animation tool
https://sourceforge.net/projects/cinepaint/ - CinePaint - high quality graphics editor used by the film industry
http://www.gimp.org/ - Gimp - GNU Image Manipulation Program, one Open Source answer to Photoshop
http://www.gimpshop.com/ - GIMPshop - A version of GIMP that gives it more of the look and feel of Photoshop
http://sourceforge.net/projects/photocoloring/ - photoColoring - Add color to photographs
http://rawtherapee.com/downloads - RawTherapee - Graphics editor
http://www.nathive.org/ - Nathive - POSIX graphics editor
http://www.imagemagick.org/ - Imagemagick - Highly functional command line based graphics editing and conversion
http://www.graphicsmagick.org/ - Graphicsmagick - Fork of Imagemagick with stability in mind
http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/ - Netpbm - Command line graphics editing and conversion. Windows version available at the gnuwin32 archive at Sourceforge
http://hugin.sourceforge.net/ - Hugin - Panorama photo stitcher
http://geeqie.sourceforge.net/ - Geeqie - GQview fork and image browser and organizer for POSIX machines
http://gqview-win.sourceforge.net/ - GQview for Win32 - Image browser and organizer, the Windows version
https://github.com/SVG-Edit/svgedit - svg-edit - Vector graphics editor in a browser
http://sodipodi.sourceforge.net/ - Sodipodi - Vector graphics editor
http://www.inkscape.org/ - Inkscape - Vector graphics editor
https://github.com/mufti11/white_dune - White Dune - 3D animation and X3D/VRML97 tool
http://brlcad.org/ - BRLCAD - CAD and modeling system used by US military

Video

http://www.videolan.org/ - VLC - play and record videos
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/ - mplayer - video player
http://www.xine-project.org/ - Xine - mainly POSIX multimedia player
https://mpv.io/ - MPV - mplayer fork
http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/ - Media Player Classic - Windows multimedia player
http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/ - Media Player Classic - Home Cinema - Updated Media Player Classic fork
http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net/ - Virtualdubmod - Windows video editor
http://www.shotcut.org/ - Shotcut - cross platform video editor
https://www.openshot.org/ - Openshot - video editor
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/Mpeg2Schnitt - Mpeg2Schnitt - Windows MPEG2 editor
http://gopchop.sourceforge.net - Gopchop - POSIX MPEG2 editor
https://www.dvdstyler.org/en/ - DVDStyler - cross-platform DVD authoring program
https://apps.kde.org/k3b/ - K3b - mainly POSIX CD and DVD recording software
http://www.distasis.com/recipes/av.htm - How to make videos with your PC

Audio

http://timidity.sourceforge.net/ - Timidity++ - MIDI player for use with MIDI soundfonts, converts MIDI to WAV, plays Karaoke MIDI
http://www.milkytracker.org/ - Milkytracker - MOD file editor and player
http://www.opensourcepartners.nl/~costar/gramofile/ - Gramofile - Cross-platform, console based recording and playback tools
http://www.distasis.com/recipes/music.htm - How to make music with your PC
http://www.distasis.com/recipes/pdmuse.htm - Places to find public domain sheet music

Writing

https://portableapps.com/apps/office/libreoffice_portable - Libre Office - Cross-platform office suite
http://www.calligra.org/ - Calligra - Cross-platform office suite
http://siag.nu/ - Siag Office - POSIX office package for low resource machines
https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/AbiWord - Abiword - Word Processor
http://www.scribus.net/ - Scribus - Desktop Publisher
http://www.lyx.org/ - Lyx - Desktop Publisher based on LATEX
https://sigil-ebook.com/ Sigil - EPUB2 and EPUB3 ebook editor
https://calibre-ebook.com/ - Calibre - ebook manager
http://www.distasis.com/write/write.htm - Open Source programs for writing
http://www.distasis.com/cpp/books.htm - Converting HTML documents to PDF and Postscript to create books/publications
http://www.distasis.com/write/pdff.htm - Fan fiction and the Creative Commons - How you can help add new material to our Creative Commons and learn from it too.

Portable and Mobile Computing

http://www.distasis.com/write/ebooks.htm - Turn your laptop, netbook or computer into an e-book reader, multimedia player or barcode reader/generator
http://zbar.sourceforge.net/ - ZBar barcode reader
http://sourceforge.net/projects/zint/ - Zint barcode generator
http://www.fbreader.org/ - FBReader free e-book reader
https://sigil-ebook.com/ - E-book reader/publisher
https://calibre-ebook.com/ - E-book reader
http://www.mupdf.com/ - MuPDF ultra-lightweight PDF reader
http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/free-pdf-reader.html - Sumatra PDF reader
http://portableapps.com/ - Portable apps
https://appimage.org/ - Portable apps for Linux
http://www.distasis.com/recipes/portp.htm - Portable device tips including how to turn devices that support graphics but not PDF or text into e-book readers
https://f-droid.org/ - F-Droid - FOSS applications for Android
https://apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/ Izzy on F-Droid - more FOSS applications for Android
https://fossdroid.com/ - Open Source web front end for F-Droid
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free_and_open-source_Android_applications - List of Open Source Android applications
https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/20092.html - Some of my favorite FLOSS Android apps
https://appinventor.mit.edu/ - Create your own mobile apps with app inventor
http://www.android-x86.org/ - Android port for x86 machines - free operating system

Software for Social Media

https://github.com/taka-tuos/nanotodon - Mastodon client
https://sourceforge.net/p/nanolinux/wiki/Home/ - FlChat IRC client
https://web.archive.org/web/20231223091150/http://agtoys.sourceforge.net/ - Flirc IRC client
https://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/index.html - Youtube-dl downloader
https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp - YT-DLP audio/video downloader

File formats - Data formats

https://web.archive.org/web/20091025062304/http://www.wotsit.org/ - The place to learn about file formats and their specifications
https://web.archive.org/web/20221211202406/https://hwiegman.home.xs4all.nl/file-formats.html - file formats from Wotsit.org
http://www.mplayerhq.hu - mencoder - converts video formats, command line
https://git.sr.ht/~tenacity/tenacity - tenacity - converts audio formats - audacity fork
http://audacity.sourceforge.net - audacity - converts audio formats
http://sox.sourceforge.net/ - sox - converts audio formats, command line
https://github.com/WinFF/winff - winff - converts video fromats

Programming Languages and Tools

http://www.mingw.org - MinGW - Minimalist GNU for Windows compiler suite. Also check out msys for a variety of Unix style tools ported to Windows.
http://www.openwatcom.org - OpenWatcom - Cross-platform C/C++ and Fortan compiler suite.
http://open-watcom.github.io/ - OpenWatcom v2 - fork for adding 64 bit support
http://sourceforge.net/projects/openwatcom/ - OpenWatcom Fork - Fork of the OpenWatcom compiler suite.
http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/ - DJGPP - DOS version of the GNU compilers
http://www.activestate.com/activeperl - ActiveState Perl - Perl port for Windows (Perl stands for Practical Extraction and Report Language)
http://phantomjs.org/ - PhantomJS - Cross-platform server side and local Javascript interpreter based on WebKit.
https://github.com/ondras/TeaJS - TeaJS - Cross-platform server side and local Javascript interpreter based on BSD licensed V8 engine from Chrome browser.
http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bashref.html - Bash - command shell. A cross-platform alternative to the DOS command prompt and Windows Powershell. You'll find Windows and DOS versions of Bash at MinGW and DJGPP sites
The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick Brooks, ISBN 0201835959, is a classical software engineering reference with information and anecdotes to learn from for any type of creative or business endeavor. Check your local library for copies.

Educational Software

Good resources for education:

https://web.archive.org/web/20210321001359/https://cc.com.au/files/Free-Software-for-Schools.pdf - Free book about what's available in Open Source Software for education - Internet Library Wayback copy
http://www.oercommons.org/ - Open Education Resources Commons
http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/ossoptionseducation - OSS Watch Options for Education
https://teachingopensource.org/Join_Us - Teaching Open Source
https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/14124.html - FLOSS Educational Resources for Internet and Distance Learning
https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/15912.html - Educational Games
https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/14440.html - Open Education Resources
http://www.distasis.com/cpp/os/digdiv.htm - Conquering the Digital Divide
http://www.distasis.com/cpp/os/nomyth.htm - Common Open Source Myths

Miscellaneous

http://libreprojects.net/ - Free, Libre and Open Source web sources available online
http://classic.tiddlywiki.com/ - Wiki in a browser, personal notebook you can share electronically
http://tiddlywiki.com/ - Wiki in a browser
https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/28233.html - Web based FLOSS list of programs that work right in your browser

Math, English, Typing Help

https://github.com/tux4kids - Tux 4 Kids
https://tuxmath.org/index-en.html?opt_lang=en - Tuxmath online version
https://github.com/Anagramarama/anagramarama - Anagramarama - anagram challenge
http://lgames.sourceforge.net/index.php?project=LPairs - LPairs - classic memory game
http://wx-xword.sourceforge.net/ - XWord - crossword puzzles
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/ports.cgi?query=scramble&stype=all - Scramble - anagram challenge
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/ports.cgi?query=concentration&stype=all&sektion=all - Concentration
https://ports.freebsd.org/cgi/ports.cgi?query=hangman&stype=all&sektion=all - Hangman

Science Related

There are some great astronomy programs available in the Open Source community.

See http://portableapps.com/ for portable versions of Celestia and Stellarium to name a few.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/virtuallab/ - Virtual Microscope
https://gitlab.com/virtual_microscope_projects/virtual-microscope - Virtual Microscope fork
https://academixproject.com/en/virtual-laboratories/ - Virtual Laboratories

Storytelling Software

Health and Nutrition

http://www.workrave.org/ - Workrave
http://prevrsi.sourceforge.net/ - PrevRSI
https://sourceforge.net/projects/nut/ - Nut
http://thinkle.github.io/gourmet/ - Gourmet Recipe Manager
https://world.openfoodfacts.org/discover - Open Food Facts database and app
https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/13704.html - Ergonomic and Health related Free and Open Source Software

Green Machines

Help keep the environment safe and help those less fortunate own computers by recycling and reusing older machines instead of throwing them away.

https://laptop.org/ - One Laptop Per Child
http://groups.google.com/group/linuxforoldcomputers - Mailing list on reusing older computers with Linux
https://www.facebook.com/groups/lightweight.linux/ - Linux for Older Computers group
http://www.distasis.com/cpp/dlin.htm - Software suggestions for low resource machines
http://www.distasis.com/cpp/slin.htm - Chronicles making an over 10 year old Sony laptop useful again
https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/15162.html - FLOSS for Low Resource Computers
http://kmandla.wordpress.com/software/ - Tips for using older computers productively
http://inconsolation.wordpress.com/ - Console application reviews

Compatibility Software

http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/ - Classic Shell - makes Windows 7 and Vista more user friendly for those used to how Windows XP does things
http://www.dosbox.com/ - DosBox - run DOS programs on Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and other machines
http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/130936-kernelex-452/ - KernelEx - Run later Windows programs (XP, etc.) on earlier Windows machines like 98 and ME.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/hx-dos/ - HX Dos Extender - Run some Win32 (including Cygwin) applications on DOS machines.
https://github.com/DibyaTheXPFan/ExtendedXP-Core-Api-implementation - Extended XP - increase life of Windows XP computers.
https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/14/pc_xt_with_hdmi/ - Article on running old software on new hardware with some interesting mentions of FLOSS drivers.
https://cpcdos.net/en - Cpcdos - Operating system for x86 computers.

Accessibility

http://espeak.sourceforge.net/ - Espeak - Text to speech
http://cmuflite.org/ - Festival Lite - Text to speech
https://github.com/festvox/bard - Bard Storyteller is a text, epub and html reader with flite text to speech support. New version (that will work on Linux, BSD and Windows) is in the works.
http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/ - CMU Sphinx 2 - Speech recognition
https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/16168.html - Lists of speech-to-text and text-to-speech libraries in C/C++
http://portableapps.com/apps/accessibility/virtual_magnifying_glass_portable - Cross-Platform Virtual Magnifying Glass
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-adriane/index-en.html - Free operating system (Knoppix Linux) with talking desktop (ADRIANE) and optional Braille support.
https://zendalona.com/accessible-coconut/ - Accessible Coconut based on Ubuntu Mate.
https://github.com/vojtapolasek/vojtux - Vojtux is an accessible version of Fedora.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/vinuxproject/ - Vinux is an accessible version of Ubuntu.
http://ta.twi.tudelft.nl/dv/staff/lemmens/jlemmens.nl/ - Linux eBook-speaker and Daisy-player
https://github.com/liblouis/liblouis - liblouis - Cross-platform Open Source translator to Braille and back
https://github.com/liblouis/liblouisutdml - liblouisutdml - Cross-platform Open Source library providing Braille transcription for XML, HTML and text documents

Security

https://sourceforge.net/projects/openfirewall/ - Open Firewall for Windows
https://sourceforge.net/projects/winopenfirewall/ - Open Firewall for Windows
https://github.com/henrypp/simplewall - Simplewall for Windows
https://github.com/ossec/ossec-hids - Open Source Host-based Intrusion Detection System
https://github.com/sandboxie-plus/Sandboxie - Sandboxie - sandbox software for Windows
http://cypherpunks.faithweb.com/nomime.html - Avoid viruses via e-mail by using ASCII text and avoiding special MIME types
http://www.openbsd.org/ - Open Source Operating Sytem with an emphasis on security
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/firewall/ipkungfu - ipkungfu - firewall for Linux
https://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/keepass_portable - Keepass Portable, keepassx and ckpass let you keep track of passwords safely on a variety of platforms.

Open Source Collections

CD Collections and covers:

https://archive.org/search?query=valo-cd - VALO-CD - Open Source Windows software collection
https://www.ttcs.tt/osswin/ Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society OSSWIN - Open Source Windows software collection
https://sourceforge.net/projects/opendisc/ - OpenDisc - Sample Open Source applications
https://framadvd.org/ - FramaDVD - Software for Windows, Mac and Linux plus multimedia resources
https://swatantra.sourceforge.net/ - Swatantra - DVD for Windows
https://web.archive.org/web/20170710165848/http://www.theopendisc.com/latest-version/cover-art/
http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Spiral-Data-Tato----A-Curiously-Complex-Origam/

Creative Commons, Public Domain and Other Open Licensed Multimedia Resources

General Open Source Multimedia Resources:

http://creativecommons.org/ - Creative Commons
https://archive.org
https://github.com/freepats - Freepats - Great source for Soundfonts using open licensing standards to help musicians create their music. This project would appreciate any volunteers who wish to help.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page - Source for graphics and other Creative Commons licensed media
https://studio.blender.org/films/ - Blender 3D creation suite and example movies made with Blender
https://www.openculture.com/free_ebooks - Lists of free books, movies and other resources from Open Culture

Books and writings:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ - Project Gutenberg
http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/ - Books like the classic Flatland
https://market.feedbooks.com/ - Includes free public domain and original books and ebooks
https://www.bartleby.com/index.html - Bartleby includes online references, fiction and other books
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Main_Page - WikiBooks
https://www.digitallibrary.io/ - Global Digital Library
http://www.baen.com/library - Science fiction and other books.
http://www.booksforabuck.com/general/pubsources.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibriVox - Librivox - Audio recordings of public domain books
http://freeclassicaudiobooks.com/ - Audio recordings of classic books
http://books.google.com/ - Use advanced filters to search books written before 1923.
http://free-culture.cc/freecontent/ - Lawrence Lessig's book, Free Culture

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