Until now open source software were the trendsetters in the modern day computing. With the recent success story of Android that is continuing to emerge as the most preferred device platform across the devices to the worldwide success of the programming language of Java which changed the way computer applications are made and offer different utility to the end user, many of the biggest and greatest success stories of software field belong to this category of open source software. Open source software are typically developed and licensed under a open license for using, developing and changing by the users and thus in contrast to typical fully owned software they are subject to more rigorous research, development and continuing improvement. Let us introduce here top 10 open source software which are known to have changed to our computing experience in one way or the other.
- Linux
- Drupal
- Joomla
- VLC
- Wordpress
- Mozilla Firefox
- GIMP
- Android
- jQuery
- BitTorrent
Linux is always to be regarded as the pathfinder in the open source software revolution. Way back in the beginning of nineties this Unix like operating system was developed and distributed under the open source license and ever since it only grown to become one of the world's most preferred operating system solutions across the industries. Linux is presently the leading operating systems in servers, mainframe computers and supercomputers with highest market share. 90% of world's fastest supercomputers run on Linux. The Android operating platform which is now the world's most popular and fastest growing operating platform is basically built on the Linux kernel.
Across personal blogs to high profile business websites to web magazines, the popularity and wide ranging acclamation of Drupal as a content management platform is nearly uncontested. It is the preferred content framework for high profile government websites like whitehouse.gov, data.gov.uk, etc. With wide array of add-ons from the vast open source development community Drupal over the years established itself also as an open source application framework with great plug-in extensibility and framework that meets today's feature requirements. Most important of all Drupal can run on almost all types of computing platforms and its installation process is one of the easiest.
Joomla is another great open source content management platforms having worldwide popularity across multitude of websites ranging from high profile corporate websites to personal blogs or administrative websites. Joomla is at the same time a powerful content management system for building a sophisticated website with state of the design attributes and a powerful tool for building online applications. Joomla is widely preferred across wide array of user denominations because of its ease of use and extensibility.
If you want to choose a powerful media player among the array of top rated open source software VLC is unquestionably the first choice. It is one of the world's most preferred free media players programs that offer widest possible playing options. It plays almost anything from media files to discs to webcams to media streaming to connected devices. For running most of the files in VLC you do not require to fetch codec. It plays all codecs ranging from MPEG-2, MP3, DivX, WMV, MKV, WebM and many more. VLC can run on any type of operating platform and can also do media conversion and streaming as well.
Wordpress is regarded to be the world's most widely used blogging platform. More than 200 million websites use Wordpress as their preferred content platform. With widest array of plugins and great extensibility it can be used not only as a content management platform but also for diverse user specific design and presentations with the help of themes like Wordpress e-commerce themes, Wordpress portfolio themes, Wordpress magazine themes, etc. Written in 120 languages and with 47 million new posts every month as an open source content platform Wordpress's dominance is almost an uncontested phenomenon.
This most popular web browser that advertises itself as proudly non-profit in its own right deserves to be one of the top 10 open source software. Firefox is now holding the second position in market share after Google Chrome among the web browsers with close to one fourth of browsing population preferring it. According to Mozilla corporation Firefox right now has a user base over 450 million worldwide. Presently available with a wide range of extensions and browsing add-ons it offers a great browsing experience with widest range of customization options and browser maneuverability. Firefox is simpler, faster, smarter and stylish incorporating new user friendly elements in every successive update.
Image and graphics presentation holds some of the key elements of importance in modern day web and GIMP is most versatile open source software tool for that purpose. From retouching or image editing to free form drawing, cropping, creating montage, converting between diverse range of image formats to re-sizing or creating animated images through animation plugins GIMP is truly single answer to all your image editing and refurbishing needs. GIMP delivers professional competence in its image editing output comparable to many so called popular photo editing suites like Adobe Photoshop, yet it is available free of cost and is subject to better development being completely an open source software.
There is no open source software in the world that created so much uproar and brand war as Android. Yes, this Linux based open source operating platform virtually created a new generation of computing devices and users. Today a great majority of handheld computing devices and smart phones run on Android and according to a recent developer survey conducted in the current year Android is also world's most preferred platform for developing mobile applications. Until 2013 March Android runs smart phones have enjoyed a market share of 64% and that is continuing to grow to make competitors gasping for regaining their position. With more than 25 million applications and being run on all major brands of phones and tablets except a few, it seems that in the time to come Android's dominance will be far from any challenge from other platforms.
For any modern day web developer using a JavaScript library is almost an invariable imperative for multiple reasons pertaining to web development and designing standard in today's environment. jQuery is the world's most popular JavaScript library with 65% of 10000 most visited websites using it. jQuery is a open source software and feature rich for diverse range of client side coding maneuverability yet it is extremely lite. From document traversal to event handling to animation or Ajax, everything can be done with the easy to use, user specific API of jQuery that is supported on any browser.
When you have to consider a file sharing platform from the bunch of open source software you cannot look much further than BitTorrent, world's most popular peer to peer file sharing protocol. As of February 2013 BitTorrent alone accounts for 3.35% of use of Internet bandwidth which is more than half of the total bandwidth for file sharing. With more than 150 million regular users and as estimated, a quarter billion monthly users it is unquestionably world's biggest file sharing platform.
Honorable mention: OpenOffice.org
There are not much office productivity suites among the open source software that can effectively match the Microsoft like user specific offerings, but OpenOffice truly can and that is precisely it is a clear choice among millions of users. OpenOffice offers almost everything you need as for your office productivity, a word processor called Writer, a spreadsheet called Calc, presentation application called Impress, drawing application called Draw, formula editor called Math and finally a database application called Math. It is equipped to read a diverse range of file formats available with other office productivity suites including that of Microsoft.