I remember that OOo required X Window on Mac OS X, which meant that users had to install another software layer. I don't know if that's still the case, but I may have read about NeoOffice (?), which is OOo specifically for the Mac. I can't check that now because my Internet connection's screwy now >:(

Daniel O. Escasa
independent IT consultant and writer
contributor, Free Software Magazine (http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com)
personal blog at http://descasa.i.ph

Cross platform support is good becasue mainly people use Applications but not the OS.... when a a person migrates from one OS to another - cross platform applications make this migration easier.

Youtux.org

While not a "program" but a game, I find that an install of Frozen-Bubble helps clear the way for new things, My family gives me the "Yeah, but does it play frozen-bubble?" anytime I show them something new.

There are about 30 apps that cross most platforms at http://shedreamsindigital.pbwiki.com all OSS or Freeware.

For combating RSI

Inkscape is an open-source vector art program, it should have made the list.

best cross-platform IDE out there.

How about something cross platform, open source and standards-based, Like Jive Software's XMPP client and server: Spark and Wildfire (which also has server-side gateways to the public networks).

But then again, I'm biased since I work there. :)

guys, about time you stopped giving so much credit to Audacity because it's far from the audio editor it should be. Remember the days Cool Edit was shareware (heck there was even a free Cool 2000 version) and did so much more than Audacity does in terms of processing a single file. Who needs all those multitracks? Instead of grabbing all sorts of 'best' awards, those guys should think about the future of the app they're writing. For instance, there is no decent free audio editor for OSX. What are they waiting for? doh

I started reading this article expecting to see VLC (Video Lan Client) featured prominantly b/c of what a useful multimedia player it is. It'll play iso files of DVD's, DIVX, XVID, MKV...etc. files with it's built-in set of codecs.

It can also take those files and re-stream them to other VLC clients on the network.

http://www.videolan.org/

It's my favorite multimedia player on EVERY platform. For a list of platforms and built-in codecs: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/features.html

This is a good list, but is fairly biased towards office/productivity apps. I agree Inkscape is excellent. Other notables are vim/emacs, apache, mysql/postgresql, perl/php/python/ruby, LaTeX, OpenVPN, PuTTY, synergy, *VNC, refbase, mplayer/VLC, AMANDA, and grace. Donate to F/OSS!

Best programmer's text editor: jEdit

Kick-ass XML/XSLT editor. http://www.oxygenxml.com/

Sure, it costs a few bucks, but MoneyDance is a cross-platform checkbook program that doesn't have the bloat of MS Money or Quicken.

I tried Abiword for Mac. VERY buggy. Doesn't even display the text properly... it puts huge random spaces between letters so that the legibility is awful.

... in this roll, the Eagle. Eagle, made by Cadsoft, runs on Win, Unices and MAC (I have used this on Linux / Windows without any signal of incompatibility). It´s a C.A.E.
Besides, I don´t like the denonomination Agnostics. Sounds bad, the meanning. I prefer OS Independent [Software].
Posted by Morvan - Linux User # 433640 - 20061228

For playing media

Gaim runs under Mac OS X over X11.
I'd recommend Adium instead...

If you are a professional photographer, or even a serious amateur, you need a program to process RAW camera files.

The one I use is Bibble Pro. It's not open source or free, but it is also nowhere near the cost of Adobe, C1, and others, and it is worth every penny. It is available for Windows, OS X, and Linux. Runs the same on my XP Tablet and my Mac Pro.

Add 7Z13 FOSS software that unzips most zip and RAR files and compreses quite well.

Opera works on most all Operating systems.

Another software that I must mention here is WinSCP. It a secure ftp client with very easy to use interface and security.

Hope all you good people at Free... I mean Share... errm... this here software magazine had a merry xmas ;-)

I agree with the basic concept for your argument but when I see GAIM in the list I can't help but think it's not THAT important. Kopete and loads of different apps can share the same protocol (i.e MSN) so it shouldn't matter what application you use but more what protocols and data formats you use.

The new XML Office document format will be *really* good for everyone who hates being tied in.

I hate being tied to Windows just because I can't play Call of Duty 2 on Linux so it's a really important subject for me. It also frustrates me that Firefox and IE render the same webpages so differently, the key difference being the font thats used to render the page.

Anyway a good article. I think once people read the article they get bored of the subject and it's up to others like me and you to remind people that it still needs to be dealt with in an ongoing effort.

:)

Phill

http://inkscape.org ftw.

An agnostic virus scanner that is open source bet that one sucker!

Filezilla ..s/ftp, scp client