About This Site

I created the opensourcemac.com and opensourcewindows.com sites in an attempt to promote free/open source software in my less-than-copious spare time. The result of this was that these sites have languished as badly-designed static pages for the last few years, gradually falling more-and-more out-of-date.

I finally decided that switching to WordPress (itself a great example of free, open source software) will do 90% of what I was planning to do with a bunch of custom development and have the virtue of Actually Getting Done. So here we are.

Mensch vs. FOSS

Since creating these websites, I came to the conclusion that there’s no important difference between free/open source and indie/mensch software. Generally indie software costs a little bit of money, but you save a lot of time and frustration. And, often, free software is unusable without non-free documentation, which is how the vendor pays the rent (e.g. Blender and Perl).

Developers I classify as “mensch” are the kind of developers who respond by email to bug reports within hours, and often fix anything they can replicate within days. They will fix bugs caused by a new OS release without charging you for an upgrade. They will support the most open file formats they can. Often, they’ll open source huge chunks of their code simply because they don’t see why not.

Improving the Sites

I’d like to improve the level of content covering each program (e.g. expanding the posts into reviews where appropriate). Although the beauty of all the software discussed on this site is that you can download it and use it for free, time is valuable and it’s worth noting that I simply won’t mention programs that aren’t basically functional (OK, I do mention nvu).

Personal Biases

I work on Windows and Mac OS X computers every day, and Linux (usually Ubuntu these days) computers more than occasionally. But I have to admit that I have a personal bias towards the Mac platform. I also do a lot of work in multimedia and game development, so I have something of a bias towards media and development tools. (If anyone can point me to good free/open source alternatives to Final Cut Pro, After Effects, et al, I would be very grateful.)

Feedback

Let me know how I can make this site better. It’s languished, unloved, for several years now. And if you would like to contribute or if you think you can do a better job of promoting free/open source software with these domains (and can convince me!) let me know.