The Dapper Lad

Imagine there’s no Heaven

We don’t mean to get all hippy-feel-the-love on you or anything… but you gotta admit, we’re entering a new era of the internet. It’s the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius Open Source.

For those who aren’t complete geeks don’t keep up with technology, in a nutshell: open source is a method of creating software by a community. Anyone can access the underlying code behind a software, and the result is developed in a public, collaborative manner. Think of it as a summer of love meets Carl Marx meets Bill Gates meets Robin Hood.

Why does this excite us so? Fast forward to the day when you no longer have to pay for a Windows operating system ($100-$200). You no longer have to pay for Microsoft Office ($100-$300). You no longer have to pay for Adobe’s creative suite of software ($1200).

Well, friends, that day is already upon us. From operating system, to business productivity, to creative endeavors, open source alternatives are already here:

Open Source Operating System (like Microsoft Windows): Ubuntu

Open Source Office applications (like Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint): OpenOffice

Open Source desktop publishing (like Adobe Pagemaker or Microsoft Publisher): Scribus

Open Source Antivirus software (like Norton, PC-Cillin, McAfee): ClamWin

Open Source Financial Software (like Intuit Quicken or Microsoft Money): HomeBank

Open Source image processing (like Adobe Photoshop): GIMP

Open Source vecto drawing (like Adobe Illustrator): Inkscape

Open Source 3D Animation: Blender

Open Source Video Editor / Compositor (like Adobe After Effects): Jahshaka

Open source system restore / network backup / data recovery software: Restore

Open source Audio Editing (like Adobe Audition): Audacity

The beauty behind open source software is that there are unlimited number of software developers. So bugs tend to be found quickly, and new features tend to come out often.

We may be ruining the future of this planet for our children, but at least they’ll have free software to run.