What is Open Source Software?



Definition of Open Source Software

Open-source software (OSS) is computer software distributed with its source code available for modification. The software usually includes a license for programmers to change the software in any way they choose. They can fix bugs, improve functions, or adapt the software to suit their own needs.

Some examples of Open Source Software

Accounting:
  • SQL-Ledger (accounting system)
  • Anti-virus:
  • ClamAV                                                                        

Databases:
  • LDAP
  • MySQL (database)
  • PostgreSQL (relational database with ability to do stored procedures)
  • Knowledge Management:
  • Plone (open source content management system)   
  • Knowledge Tree  

Domain Name Servers:
  • Bind
  • PowerDNS                        

Telephony:
  • Asterisk (A Phone system [PBX] that also supports Voice Over IP technology)
  • Elastix
  • FreePBX
  • Trixbox CE

E-mail Servers:
  • PostFix
  • QMail                                       
  • Sendmail           

File Servers:
  • FreeNAS
  • OpenFiler
  • Samba

Medical Software:
  • http://www.oemr.org
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_healthcare_software

Other Valuable Systems (servers & desktops):
  • Apache (web server)
  • CentOS (Linux distribution from Red Hat's development efforts)
  • Fedora (Linux destop system)
  • JBoss (J2EE server for Enterprise Java Development)
  • Slackware (Linux distribution)
  • Tomcat (Java servlet container)                                                                   
  • Ubuntu (a Linux desktop operating system)
  • Zope (Content management system and portal)

Productivity Software:
  • Evolution (calendar, contact manager and e-mail client)
  • Firefox (web browser)
  • Gimp (image manipulation program)
  • Open Office (word processor, spreadsheet, etc.)
  • Thunderbird (e-mail client, news aggregator, etc.)

Programming Languages:
  • C, C++, Mono, PHP, Python, Perl, Ruby, TcL                 

Spam Filtering:
  • AmavisD
  • PostGrey
  • SpamAssign                       

Routing/Networking:
  • DHCPD
  • IPTables                                 
  • PF Sense

Virtualization:
  • KVM                                               
  • Xen




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