In a dream world, all software would be free. However, we spend enough time with our eyes open to realize that some situations call for proprietary software, either as a desktop or as a server application, on a free system. On the other hand, those stuck with a proprietary operating system can still enjoy free software applications. This article will list a few situations where free software and proprietary software can mix, and give three examples of each.

Why free and proprietary can mix

Examine this scenario: your company is moving your servers over to a free system. The trouble is, you have an Oracle database that’s been running for x years and it’s tweaked so perfectly you can’t afford the time and effort to scrub it and migrate to a free relational database management system (RDBMS). Rest easy: Oracle is available on free systems, albeit certified only on certain distributions.

Another scenario: your company policy is free systems on desktops, with a few selected exceptions. You’re one of the poor sods who pass the Free-OS exemption test because of some esoteric application not available on free systems. However, your company can’t afford a license for MS Office, and you do need a Microsoft file-compatible word processor, presentation-authoring tool, or spreadsheet. OpenOffice.org to the rescue.

Situations such as those above are not limited to corporate desktops. Your home PC might have an important proprietary application that doesn’t have any free counterpart. You can’t resort to dual-boot because that just takes too much time. So, you can run an emulator on a free system to run that proprietary application. In an extreme case—e.g., your software won’t run in an emulator—you might be forced into Windows but choose to run mostly free applications.

You’re one of the poor sods who pass the Free-OS exemption test because of some esoteric application not available on free systems. OpenOffice.org to the rescue

For this article’s purposes, treatment of proprietary systems will be limited to Windows 9x/ME/NT/2K because they’re the dominant platforms. Other proprietary systems are OS/2, BeOS, and MacOS X, and most free software applications for Windows are available for them as well. I will define free systems as GNU/Linux and the BSDs and I will refer to them as “Freenix” for convenience.

Free software on proprietary systems

The OpenOffice.org suite and the Firefox Web browser are the most prominent free software applications on proprietary systems. In addition, server applications such as Apache, MySQL, and PostgreSQL are also available for Windows.

OpenOffice.org began life as StarOffice, an office suite by a German company named Star Division. StarOffice was available for Windows, OS/2 (up to version 5.2), and Unix. Sun Microsystems bought StarOffice in August 1999 and subsequently opened up the source code to the community. The result was OpenOffice.org, now at version 1.1.4 for all available platforms—which include Windows, OS/2 (for a fee), and Freenix. OpenOffice.org includes a full-featured word processor, presentation-authoring tool, spreadsheet, and drawing tool. It is nearly 100% file-compatible with MS Office.

OpenOffice.org Writer

As an aside, StarOffice, now at version 7, is still available for Windows, GNU/Linux, and Solaris, for a suggested retail price of US$79.95. However, academic use is free except for shipping and handling. In addition, Sun also offers site licenses. Lastly, there’s an electronic download available for US$59.95. StarOffice has all the components of OpenOffice.org, and adds a simple database manager. The Sun FAQ claims that SO and OpenOffice.org share the same code.

The Mozilla suite includes a Web browser, chat client, newsgroup reader, POP/IMAP client, HTML composer, and the Jabberzilla multi-protocol IM client

Firefox is a child of the Mozilla project which also produced its bigger brother the Mozilla suite. The latter includes a Web browser, chat client, newsgroup reader, POP/IMAP client, HTML composer, and the Jabberzilla multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client. Firefox is a stand-alone browser, now at version 1.0, available for the same platforms as Mozilla and OpenOffice.org. Like the advertising-sponsored Opera and the Mozilla browser, Firefox employs tabbed browsing. This means that you can browse several pages in different panes within the same window, and switch from one pane to another by clicking on the tabs at the top of the panes.

Firefox in full-screen mode. Note the tabs at the top of the viewing area

The most exciting feature for me is the use of the XML User-interface Language (XUL, pronounced zool to rhyme with ‘ cool’) to create extensions, which as the name implies, extend the features of Firefox. The one I find most useful is WebmailCompose, which converts a mailto: link to a link to my selected Webmail account’s compose window. In other words, when I click on a mailto: link, a new tab opens up where I can compose a mail message from gmail. Also, here’s an interesting sample XUL application that should give you some idea of XUL’s capabilities. A real-world application is the Wizz RSS News Reader, which uses the sidebar as the control panel. I personally find XUL interesting because it looks to be one of the building blocks in creating a class of applications known as Rich Internet Applications (RIAs), which use the browser as a universal front end.

The Web server we know as Apache, officially the Apache HTTP server, is the most famous output of the Apache Software Foundation. Apache serves approximately 67% of the world’s websites. It is now at version 2, available both for Windows and free systems. A 2.1 version is, as of this writing, in beta.