Open Source Alternatives to Commercial Software

Hi again from OLLieville.  It's been a while, hasn't it?  The OLLies have been busily training on new equipment and working to put together some new materials for all of you out there. 
 
     Over in our podcast area, we have a new OLLieCast interview with USA English instructor Shaunda Sterling on her use of Moodle in the Higher Education classroom.  (The link can be found at http://usaoll.org/node/241).
 
     On September 11th, we had our latest Theory Break which featured Dr. Eva Ma Dominguez-Gomez, a visiting professor in the USA Visual Arts department.  Dr. Dominguez-Gomez presented on "Adaptive Hypermedia System for Second Language Teaching and Research at Early Ages."  The video and powerpoint will be available soon through the Theory Break area of the usaoll.org site.      We'll have our next Theory Break on November 13 with Dr. Peggy Delmas from Leadership and Teacher Education speaking about "Authur Chickering: Seven Vectors of Student Development."  For those of you on or near the USA campus, feel free to attend (details can be found at http://usaoll.org/tuesdays).  For those of you unable to attend, we will have the video and powerpoint available on the site about a week after the presentation.
 
     But now, on to our regularly scheduled blog post.  Hi again!  I am so glad to be up and running again on the OLLieBlog!  Recently, I bought a new XPS 630 (it's my new baby and I've been getting some grief from my fellow OLLies because of this fact).  I've started putting together a "wish-list" of what I'd like to do with the system and very quickly found that the cost of the software would be astronomical if I went the ordinary commercial route. 
 
     So, I started doing some digging.  As it turns out, there's a ton of open source alternatives that (I'm embarrassed to say) I didn't know about.  In the interest of sharing information, here's the list so far-- 
Adobe Acrobat

• PDFCreator (http://www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator)

Adobe After Effects

• Jahshaka (http://jahshaka.org/)

Adobe Audition

• Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/)
  
• TraversoDAW (http://traverso-daw.org/)

Adobe Encore DVD

• DVD Styler (http://dvdstyler.de/)

Adobe Premier Pro

• Avidemux (http://avidemux.sourceforge.net/)

• Virtual Dub (http://www.virtualdub.org/)

Anime Studio

• Synfig (http://www.synfig.org/Main_Page)
  
• Pencil (http://www.les-stooges.org/pascal/pencil/)

Autodesk 3ds max

• Blender (http://www.blender.org/)

Blackboard Learning System

• Sakai (http://sakaiproject.org/portal)
  
• Moodle (http://moodle.org/)

Camtasia

• Virtual Dub (http://www.virtualdub.org/)
  
• CamStudio (http://camstudio.org/)
  
• Jing (http://www.jingproject.com/)

Fraps

• Taksi (http://taksi.sourceforge.net/)

Illustrator

• Inkscape (http://www.inkscape.org/)

LavaSoft Ad Aware

• WinPooch (http://winpooch.free.fr/page/home.php?lang=en&page=home)

Micromedia Flash Pro

• Open Laszlo (http://www.openlaszlo.org/)

Microsoft Office

• OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org/)

Microsoft Project

• OpenProj (http://openproj.org/openproj)
  
• GanttProject (http://ganttproject.biz/)
  
• Open Workbench (http://www.openworkbench.org/)

Microsoft Visio

• Dia (http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia/)

MindManager

• FreeMind (http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page)

Nero Recode

• Handbrake (http://handbrake.fr/)

Norton Antivirus

• ClamWin (http://www.clamwin.com/)

Norton Personal Firewall

• WIPFW (http://wipfw.sourceforge.net/)

PageMaker and InDesign

• Scribus (http://www.scribus.net/)

Photoshop.

• Artweaver (http://www.artweaver.de/index.php?en_version) CinePaint (http://www.cinepaint.org/)
  
• Dogwaffle (http://www.thebest3d.com/dogwaffle/free/)
  
• PhotoFilter (http://photofiltre.en.softonic.com/)
  
• Paint.NET (http://www.getpaint.net/)
  
• ArtRage (http://www.ambientdesign.com/)
  
• Gimp (http://www.gimp.org/)
  
• ImageMagick (http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php)

Pixar Renderman

• Pixie (http://www.renderpixie.com/)

SnagIt

• FastStone Capture (http://www.faststone.org/FSCaptureDetail.htm)
  
• Jing (http://www.jingproject.com/)

More Useful OpenSource options
3-D animation software

• Anim8or (http://www.anim8or.com/)
  
• Blender (http://www.blender.org/)

3-D modeling

• CB Model Pro (http://www.cbmodelpro.com/) 

Photorealistic landscape generator

• Terragen (http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/) 

Speech recognition software

• Sphinx (http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/html/cmusphinx.php)

 
 
     I'll try and regularly update the list and maybe point out some of the plusses and minuses of each program.  (Audacity I already adore!  I've been using it for a few years now.)  If you have any favorite Open Source software programs, let us know!  Maybe they'll end up on a future list.  Or if you're unfamiliar with Open Source, try out a few of the programs and see what you think of them.  Most don't have all the "bells and whistles" of commercial software, but they get the job done for those of us doing educational multimedia and distance ed (sometimes fewer "bells and whistles" is a good thing).
 
Until next time, this is the OLLieBlogger, over and out...