8 ms·

High Priority Free Software Projects

67 points by Flenser 15y ago

garethsprice 15y ago
"Some of the most important projects on our list are replacement projects. These projects are important because they address areas where users are continually being seduced into using nonfree software by the lack of an adequate free replacement." Why is having a free program that solves a problem that's already solved more important than creating programs that solve new problems, but that also happen to be free? I find it hard to believe that the most important free software project in the world is a player for passively consuming content in a proprietary format (Flash), that is A) dying and B) more for eye candy than anything useful.
- tjr 15y ago
  Because lack of such free software can hinder people who might be otherwise interested in switching to a free operating system from actually doing so. A free replacement for Flash is likely to become less useful in this situation, as other non-proprietary solutions are becoming prevalent.
  - kbutler 15y ago
    The point is that a clone makes it so people "can" switch, if they want. A "unique to free software" solution makes it so people want and need to switch. Between the two, I think creating incentives is more powerful than removing obstacles. (Given strong enough motivation, people will overcome obstacles. Lacking strong motivation, why bother?)
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
  - greenyoda 15y ago
    Why would a lack of a GPL Flash replacement hinder someone from switching to Linux? Flash is already available for Linux (I've run it under Ubuntu), and while it's not "free software", it's free of charge.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - tjr 15y ago
      From the FSF's perspective, being "free software" is what is important. They encourage people to use only "free software", and thus they see a need for a "free" replacement for Flash.
- gamegod 15y ago
  Agreed - It shows tremendous lack of vision and leadership on the part of the FSF to continually push for "clones". The pursuit of mediocrity that is endemic in open source originates from them. Let's innovate people...
  - ajross 15y ago
    I think that's vastly overgeneralized. By that logic we'd have no free compiler, no free kernel, no free userspace. It's all clones. True innovation is rare (and it certainly does happen as free software). The goal of the FSF is to promote the use of free software. If people won't or can't use free software because they need some proprietary program, then the goal of the FSF becomes to eliminate that need. Sometimes this involves writing software that is better than proprietary equivalents (c.f. emacs and gcc in their early days). Sometimes it means just cloning what's there so you have something to use (most of coreutils falls into this category).
    - greenyoda 15y ago
      The difference is that there were no high-quality free C compilers available before gcc, so it filled a real need. Lots of people couldn't afford to pay hundreds of dollars for a compiler. However, an open source version of Flash would be replacing software that any Linux user can already get for free (and would probably be of inferior quality to Flash, at least for the first several releases).
- cbs 15y ago
  >Why is having a free program that solves a problem that's already solved more important than creating programs that solve new problems, but that also happen to be free? Because their goals include that everything possible should be possible for to do with free software. It is by definition a game of catch-up.
gurraman 15y ago
Another project I would like to be high priority is GIMP. Photoshop is the misruler and needs to be dethroned. It's a terrible piece of software that, more or less, forces people to use non-free operative systems. It has to be replaced and/or get some real competition that would force Adobe to get their act straight.
- worldimperator 15y ago
  The piece of software that forces people like me to use non-free operative systems is not Photoshop, but Gimp. And more horribly, Inkscape.
  - aw3c2 15y ago
    That sounds backward. How could some software that is merely available for free drive you away from something? Also, have you tried alternatives? There is not just GIMP...
    - eropple 15y ago
      There are no serious alternatives to GIMP, and GIMP in turn is not a serious alternative to Photoshop. GIMP is an astonishingly user-hostile piece of software--though to their credit it appears the developers have finally begun to realize this and make changes with people who actually use graphics software, not people who write graphics software, in mind. However, even despite these new-ish developments, there is just no real open-source answer to Photoshop (and Inkscape is only a partial one to Illustrator).
  - wazoox 15y ago
    can you elaborate? I see people constantly bashing GIMP, and though it isn't without problems it's good enough for me for all web stuff, and good enough for a bit of print stuff.
- stonemetal 15y ago
  The only problem I have with making a GIMP replacement is, I wouldn't know what to build. All of my image editing needs are filled by programs that shipped with my OS. I have used the GIMP before it was confusing(which would probably be resolvable if I spent time learning the app), but capable of what I needed. Yet every time I see it brought up it is usually called inadequate, with most of the problems called out looking like "doesn't work exactly like Photoshop so I am not even going to try it" sort of problems. So my question is: Is there something actually wrong with the GIMP other than the fact that it is ugly? I don't consider the fact that it works differently from Photoshop a problem worth fixing.
mvts 15y ago
A free alternative to Oracle Forms? That's a pretty neat idea since in my opinion OF actually serves the developers instead of enslaving them.
tghw 15y ago
I'm kind of dismayed at the lack of innovation, or even appreciation for innovation, in this list. It seems a waste to spend good developers time cloning something like Google Earth, which is marginally useful to begin with, already free (as in beer), just so that it can also be free (as in speech). Instead, why not spend time working on projects that will attract people to free software because it's only available as free software?
- DanielStraight 15y ago
  Agreed. The free software approach seems to assume that what a computer should be and do has already been decided and they just need to make free versions of everything. Like there's a certain set of programs that defines a complete system and their goal is just to get from 60% or wherever they are now to 100%. Apple, on the other hand, reinvents computing every 5 years or so (yes, that's hyperbolic). If a FOSS advocate had created the iPad, the most popular device in computing today would be FOSS. The most popular computers and electronics in the world aren't Apple products because Apple made an Apple version of everything. The most popular computers and electronics in the world are Apple products because Apple innovated.
  - bryanlarsen 15y ago
    The most popular computers and electronics in the world are Apple products because Apple polished everything to a sheen. Sure apple created some cool stuff, but the open source world created some pretty darn cool stuff too. Remember, the first web browser was open source.
    - TwistedWeasel 15y ago
      Great example, but that was a long time ago. The argument being made here is that there isn't enough innovation in the free software space in recent years.
      - bryanlarsen 15y ago
        What about the massive strides that Chrome/Mozilla/WebKit are making? What about the innovations in programming languages such as Clojure and Arc and Erlang? What about the innovations in frameworks such as node.js and sproutcore? I could go on all day. IMO, it's a lot easier to find innovation in the open source world than it is in the commercial world which seems to be more about copy & polish than it does about innovation. If you were arguing that open source lacked polish, I would agree with you. But innovation? Hardly.
kanwisher 15y ago
Octave should be higher, program is really far off from being any kind of competitor to Matlab. Even the installation is daunting on OSX. Language has a lot of idiosyncrocies to matlab. With ML/Computer vision becoming bigger, could help a wave of new startups.
- hogu 15y ago
  when I needed a free version of matlab, I switched to python and have never looked back. better for me in every way. I think that python is a much better direction for that type of computing anyways.
  - Jach 15y ago
    Those are my thoughts, but I also want to learn some more R as well. (I hear stories of people going from Python, to R, back to Python, but I don't see why one couldn't use both.) When you have two such powerful tools that can both be extended and embedded fairly easily, why would one need Matlab anymore?
    - rcfox 15y ago
      1) There are tons of libraries for Matlab. Sure, you could rewrite them in Python, but most people just want to get their work done. 2) It is deeply ingrained in the academic world.
  - kkwok 15y ago
    Any suggestions for good resources for learning how to use python to replace matlab (scipy, numpy, etc)?
    - bugsbunnyak 15y ago
      http://scipy-lectures.github.com/ http://scipy-lectures.github.com/
- wwrap 15y ago
  Are there any idiosyncrasies besides the ones detailed here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MATLAB_Programming/Differences_between_Octave_and_MATLAB http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MATLAB_Programming/Differences_... I say this because I'm learning Octave mainly to get familiar with the Matlab-ish world (kinds of coding used in real world academia) and I wonder what I'm missing.
joelthelion 15y ago
What a weird list: - Flash is slowly dying, so is Gnash really that high a priority? Also, Gnash seems to be far from being a good flash replacement; by the time it will be, flash will be irrelevant. I'd argue work spent on Gnash is mostly wasted. - GNU Octave is far behind Python + Numpy/Scipy/Matplotlib. Better abandon it and focus on the succesful platform.
- Peaker 15y ago
  For people who only know how to use Matlab, Octave is one less reason to go non-free.
  - joelthelion 15y ago
    I disagree. It's one reason for them to try a free software package, decide that it sucks (it lacks most of the interesting libraries), and go back to using Matlab forever. If on the other hand they were introduced to the python stack, which has a superior language and a lot of neat libraries (though not yet on par with Matlab), they might have a chance of sticking to it.
    - Peaker 15y ago
      Porting Matlab code to Octave is much easier -- including more libraries.
tmcw 15y ago
It's OpenStreetMap. Not Open Street Maps. You can use as reference the domain http://www.openstreetmap.org/ http://www.openstreetmap.org/, the logo with the word OpenStreetMap, or the title element of the page, which says (wait for it) OpenStreetMap. Maybe cut and paste that text, or line the browser windows up to reference. /end ragefest. But come on, guys. It's not 'The Wikipedias'
Sniffnoy 15y ago
Regarding Skype, you're not going to get Skype users over to a free alternative by making your own voice-chat program; you need to actually reverse-engineer the protocol and make your own client so they can switch without having to convince other people. (Of course, someone did reverse engineer Skype however-long-ago-it-was-now, but looking it up, apparently it might have been done by decompilation and so of questionable legality, which is why nobody's making a Pidgin plugin to use it. Annoying.)

67 points by Flenser 15y ago

"Some of the most important projects on our list are replacement projects. These projects are important because they address areas where users are continually being seduced into using nonfree software by the lack of an adequate free replacement." Why is having a free program that solves a problem that's already solved more important than creating programs that solve new problems, but that also happen to be free? I find it hard to believe that the most important free software project in the world is a player for passively consuming content in a proprietary format (Flash), that is A) dying and B) more for eye candy than anything useful.

tjr 15y ago
Because lack of such free software can hinder people who might be otherwise interested in switching to a free operating system from actually doing so. A free replacement for Flash is likely to become less useful in this situation, as other non-proprietary solutions are becoming prevalent.
- kbutler 15y ago
  The point is that a clone makes it so people "can" switch, if they want. A "unique to free software" solution makes it so people want and need to switch. Between the two, I think creating incentives is more powerful than removing obstacles. (Given strong enough motivation, people will overcome obstacles. Lacking strong motivation, why bother?)
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- greenyoda 15y ago
  Why would a lack of a GPL Flash replacement hinder someone from switching to Linux? Flash is already available for Linux (I've run it under Ubuntu), and while it's not "free software", it's free of charge.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - tjr 15y ago
    From the FSF's perspective, being "free software" is what is important. They encourage people to use only "free software", and thus they see a need for a "free" replacement for Flash.
gamegod 15y ago
Agreed - It shows tremendous lack of vision and leadership on the part of the FSF to continually push for "clones". The pursuit of mediocrity that is endemic in open source originates from them. Let's innovate people...
- ajross 15y ago
  I think that's vastly overgeneralized. By that logic we'd have no free compiler, no free kernel, no free userspace. It's all clones. True innovation is rare (and it certainly does happen as free software). The goal of the FSF is to promote the use of free software. If people won't or can't use free software because they need some proprietary program, then the goal of the FSF becomes to eliminate that need. Sometimes this involves writing software that is better than proprietary equivalents (c.f. emacs and gcc in their early days). Sometimes it means just cloning what's there so you have something to use (most of coreutils falls into this category).
  - greenyoda 15y ago
    The difference is that there were no high-quality free C compilers available before gcc, so it filled a real need. Lots of people couldn't afford to pay hundreds of dollars for a compiler. However, an open source version of Flash would be replacing software that any Linux user can already get for free (and would probably be of inferior quality to Flash, at least for the first several releases).
cbs 15y ago
>Why is having a free program that solves a problem that's already solved more important than creating programs that solve new problems, but that also happen to be free? Because their goals include that everything possible should be possible for to do with free software. It is by definition a game of catch-up.

gurraman 15y ago

Another project I would like to be high priority is GIMP. Photoshop is the misruler and needs to be dethroned. It's a terrible piece of software that, more or less, forces people to use non-free operative systems. It has to be replaced and/or get some real competition that would force Adobe to get their act straight.

worldimperator 15y ago
The piece of software that forces people like me to use non-free operative systems is not Photoshop, but Gimp. And more horribly, Inkscape.
- aw3c2 15y ago
  That sounds backward. How could some software that is merely available for free drive you away from something? Also, have you tried alternatives? There is not just GIMP...
  - eropple 15y ago
    There are no serious alternatives to GIMP, and GIMP in turn is not a serious alternative to Photoshop. GIMP is an astonishingly user-hostile piece of software--though to their credit it appears the developers have finally begun to realize this and make changes with people who actually use graphics software, not people who write graphics software, in mind. However, even despite these new-ish developments, there is just no real open-source answer to Photoshop (and Inkscape is only a partial one to Illustrator).
- wazoox 15y ago
  can you elaborate? I see people constantly bashing GIMP, and though it isn't without problems it's good enough for me for all web stuff, and good enough for a bit of print stuff.
stonemetal 15y ago
The only problem I have with making a GIMP replacement is, I wouldn't know what to build. All of my image editing needs are filled by programs that shipped with my OS. I have used the GIMP before it was confusing(which would probably be resolvable if I spent time learning the app), but capable of what I needed. Yet every time I see it brought up it is usually called inadequate, with most of the problems called out looking like "doesn't work exactly like Photoshop so I am not even going to try it" sort of problems. So my question is: Is there something actually wrong with the GIMP other than the fact that it is ugly? I don't consider the fact that it works differently from Photoshop a problem worth fixing.

mvts 15y ago

A free alternative to Oracle Forms? That's a pretty neat idea since in my opinion OF actually serves the developers instead of enslaving them.

tghw 15y ago

I'm kind of dismayed at the lack of innovation, or even appreciation for innovation, in this list. It seems a waste to spend good developers time cloning something like Google Earth, which is marginally useful to begin with, already free (as in beer), just so that it can also be free (as in speech). Instead, why not spend time working on projects that will attract people to free software because it's only available as free software?

DanielStraight 15y ago
Agreed. The free software approach seems to assume that what a computer should be and do has already been decided and they just need to make free versions of everything. Like there's a certain set of programs that defines a complete system and their goal is just to get from 60% or wherever they are now to 100%. Apple, on the other hand, reinvents computing every 5 years or so (yes, that's hyperbolic). If a FOSS advocate had created the iPad, the most popular device in computing today would be FOSS. The most popular computers and electronics in the world aren't Apple products because Apple made an Apple version of everything. The most popular computers and electronics in the world are Apple products because Apple innovated.
- bryanlarsen 15y ago
  The most popular computers and electronics in the world are Apple products because Apple polished everything to a sheen. Sure apple created some cool stuff, but the open source world created some pretty darn cool stuff too. Remember, the first web browser was open source.
  - TwistedWeasel 15y ago
    Great example, but that was a long time ago. The argument being made here is that there isn't enough innovation in the free software space in recent years.
    - bryanlarsen 15y ago
      What about the massive strides that Chrome/Mozilla/WebKit are making? What about the innovations in programming languages such as Clojure and Arc and Erlang? What about the innovations in frameworks such as node.js and sproutcore? I could go on all day. IMO, it's a lot easier to find innovation in the open source world than it is in the commercial world which seems to be more about copy & polish than it does about innovation. If you were arguing that open source lacked polish, I would agree with you. But innovation? Hardly.

kanwisher 15y ago

Octave should be higher, program is really far off from being any kind of competitor to Matlab. Even the installation is daunting on OSX. Language has a lot of idiosyncrocies to matlab. With ML/Computer vision becoming bigger, could help a wave of new startups.

hogu 15y ago
when I needed a free version of matlab, I switched to python and have never looked back. better for me in every way. I think that python is a much better direction for that type of computing anyways.
- Jach 15y ago
  Those are my thoughts, but I also want to learn some more R as well. (I hear stories of people going from Python, to R, back to Python, but I don't see why one couldn't use both.) When you have two such powerful tools that can both be extended and embedded fairly easily, why would one need Matlab anymore?
  - rcfox 15y ago
    1) There are tons of libraries for Matlab. Sure, you could rewrite them in Python, but most people just want to get their work done. 2) It is deeply ingrained in the academic world.
- kkwok 15y ago
  Any suggestions for good resources for learning how to use python to replace matlab (scipy, numpy, etc)?
  - bugsbunnyak 15y ago
    http://scipy-lectures.github.com/ http://scipy-lectures.github.com/
wwrap 15y ago
Are there any idiosyncrasies besides the ones detailed here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MATLAB_Programming/Differences_between_Octave_and_MATLAB http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MATLAB_Programming/Differences_... I say this because I'm learning Octave mainly to get familiar with the Matlab-ish world (kinds of coding used in real world academia) and I wonder what I'm missing.

joelthelion 15y ago

What a weird list: - Flash is slowly dying, so is Gnash really that high a priority? Also, Gnash seems to be far from being a good flash replacement; by the time it will be, flash will be irrelevant. I'd argue work spent on Gnash is mostly wasted. - GNU Octave is far behind Python + Numpy/Scipy/Matplotlib. Better abandon it and focus on the succesful platform.

Peaker 15y ago
For people who only know how to use Matlab, Octave is one less reason to go non-free.
- joelthelion 15y ago
  I disagree. It's one reason for them to try a free software package, decide that it sucks (it lacks most of the interesting libraries), and go back to using Matlab forever. If on the other hand they were introduced to the python stack, which has a superior language and a lot of neat libraries (though not yet on par with Matlab), they might have a chance of sticking to it.
  - Peaker 15y ago
    Porting Matlab code to Octave is much easier -- including more libraries.

tmcw 15y ago

It's OpenStreetMap. Not Open Street Maps. You can use as reference the domain http://www.openstreetmap.org/ http://www.openstreetmap.org/, the logo with the word OpenStreetMap, or the title element of the page, which says (wait for it) OpenStreetMap. Maybe cut and paste that text, or line the browser windows up to reference. /end ragefest. But come on, guys. It's not 'The Wikipedias'

Sniffnoy 15y ago

Regarding Skype, you're not going to get Skype users over to a free alternative by making your own voice-chat program; you need to actually reverse-engineer the protocol and make your own client so they can switch without having to convince other people. (Of course, someone did reverse engineer Skype however-long-ago-it-was-now, but looking it up, apparently it might have been done by decompilation and so of questionable legality, which is why nobody's making a Pidgin plugin to use it. Annoying.)