Moving to Open Source

For the past six months I have been using FireFox as my web browser, Thunderbird for email, Open Office.org for documents/spreadsheets and the Gimp for graphics. I’ve also just started to use the FlightGear flight simulator. Like the Linux operating system, all of these packages are Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS). You can download, install … Continue reading “Moving to Open Source”

For the past six months I have been using FireFox as my web browser, Thunderbird for email, Open Office.org for documents/spreadsheets and the Gimp for graphics. I’ve also just started to use the FlightGear flight simulator.

Like the Linux operating system, all of these packages are Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS). You can download, install and run them without having to pay anything. If you like them and keep using them, you have the option of donating towards their expenses but it’s up to you.

The concept of FLOSS has been around for a long time but it’s starting to peak as more and more people start using it. It’s being considered for more and more work environments, not just in homes. Lets face it, FireFox is an excellent browser, Thunderbird’s anti-spam filters are great and OpenOffice.org does Microsoft Office’s role better than MS Office (well, MS Office 2000 crashes when trying to read some documents created in Office 2003, OO doesn’t :)

We made a concious decision within APC.au to switch over to FLOSS software where possible. As part of the work we do with non-government organisations such as human rights groups and so on, using commercial software was no longer viable from both the “tied to/trusting a coporation” perspectives and from the financial aspect (less money spent on infrastructure = more money available to help others, etc)

At this point, I am now able to seriously consider converting to Linux instead of Windows. All my applications are available on Linux and it’s an extremely stable platform to operate from. Hopefully I can take this step in the near future when I pick up a new laptop.