Posted on 03/31/2009 1:52:46 PM PDT by ShadowAce
When big companies release new software, they launch it with lots of hoopla: press tours, technical conferences, free T-shirts. Open-source projects, even the well-known ones, generally release their major new versions with a lot less fanfare. The FOSS (free and open-source software) community is often too busy coding and testing to bother with marketing, even when the new "point release" of the software is really remarkable.
And there are plenty of remarkable open-source applications on the way this year. Quite a few projects are quietly (or not so quietly) working on major releases or significant upgrades that they aim to make available sometime during 2009. I've rounded up 25 of the most notable here.
There are browsers and operating systems, mobile platforms, development tools, productivity applications, IT administration tools, collaboration software and a few hard-to-classify items. Some of these you've heard of; others may be relatively obscure but should give you the wriggly "Oooh, cool!" sense of discovery.
You're sure to feel that one or two really important upcoming releases are missing. (You try paring the list down to a couple dozen candidates!) But the FOSS community spirit can serve here too. Please add your nominations for can't-miss open-source releases of 2009 to the article comments, including links to the project sites, and we'll all benefit.
Ten years ago, who'd have thought there could still be so much innovation in Web browsers in 2009? Microsoft Corp. may intend to keep up the pace with Internet Explorer 8, but the FOSS options are at least as compelling.
Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox 3.5 promises a native parser for JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), a data exchange format frequently used in Web apps, and several
(Excerpt) Read more at computerworld.com ...
Ubuntu further expanding the functionality of the NetBook project, Moblin.
Yea, baby!
I’m one step close to my dream of a fully functioning uTablet PC...woot, woot!
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