Open Source Software

Information Wants to Be Free has a great post about open source software alternatives. I can proudly say I use several of these including Firefox and Thunderbird. I’ve just started playing with Jybe but have managed to forget my password already and am having some trouble resetting it. I also like OpenOffice although I am not using it on my Mac. However, I do use it on my extra Mac a work though because I use it so infrequently I couldn’t justify the cost of purchasing a real copy of MS Office for that computer. I used PDF creator before I switched to the Mac and haven’t found a replacement for it yet. Additionally, our soon to debut chat reference service will use Gaim.

A few of my own picks for open source software, AWStats is great for running web server log analysis. If you are trying to get database-driven web pages up and running on the cheap you can’t beat PHP and MySQL. Plus, PhpMyAdmin which provides a set of PHP scripts to manage, manipulate and query the MySQL databases through a Web browser window. I also highly reccomend GIMP as a Photoshop alternative and you can’t beat Audacity for recording sound. Use the LAME encoder to make your own podcasts! Plus I recently migrated to WordPress for my blog. So I would say I’m probably using as much open source software as proprietary software now.

I’m sure I’m going to learn alot more about open source software for libraries next Friday when I am attending a workshop entitled “Open Source Software in Libraries” by Eric Lease Morgan at the Rochester Regional Library Council. I hoping this is the same workshop that David Bigwood at Catalogablog attended and reported on. If it is (which I think it is), I’ll be learning about great stuff like Apache Web servers, AxKit, Perl, Yaz, Zebra, MARC::Record, Swish-e, Xsltproc and Xmllint. I really must be a geek because I can hardly wait!