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Where can you find information on Free Software?

Nowadays there is considerable discussion about the notion of Free Software. Free Software has been available to meet market needs for a long time. There is an increasing number of public administrations, companies and individual users willing to adopt it.

But where can one look for it and find it?

Below are some platforms we recommend visiting:

logo-dev-cocos-bz.jpg Since spring 2006 CoCOS offers the developing-server dev.CoCOS.bz, which represents for the South Tyrolean developing community a local platform for the development for Free Software Made in South Tyrol.
logo-sourceforce.jpg SourceFourge is the most important international platform. Beyond a big choice of Free Software SourceForge also offers links to download-servers.
logo-freshmeat.gif A further important point to start of for the search of Free Software or for Free Software projects is Freshmeat.
logo-fsf.jpg Since 1999 the Free Software Foundation in collaboration with the UNESCO also offers an own Free Software Directory.

 

Here Free Software has already become a reality!

  1. Already in 1993, the SAD Trasporto Locale SpA company transferred all its IT infrastructures towards GNU/Linux.

  2. In 2001 the Consorzio dei Comuni (Municipalities Consortium) implemented GNU/Linux in all its servers.

  3. Since 2005 the Provincial Authorities of Bolzano have installed OpenOffice.org in all their computers.

  4. Thanks to the FUSS project, in 2005 all schools with Italian as a native language in South Tyrol adopted GNU/Linux for all their computers.

  5. GNU/Linux installations in the world are estimated to be around 150 million.

  6. Several countries use only GNU/Linux operating systems and Free Software, e.g. Cuba, Mexico, Brazil, China, most parts of Japan and many others.

  7. The project called LiMux-Projekt was designed with the objective to use Debian in 14,000 workstations of the Municipal Administration of Munich. Other important examples are Schwäbisch Hall and the Niedersachsen Police.

  8. ARD Tagesschau uses GNU/Linux and the video processing program Kino.

  9. More and more companies decide to change and install Linux in their electronic systems. Some examples are Klingel, a German mail shop company, and Mercadona, a big Spanish supermarket chain. Already in 1997, car rental company Autovermietung Sixt installed Linux in all its IT systems. Insurance company DeBeKa uses Linux and OpenOffice.org in 3,000 workstations, which are decentralized in 230 offices.

  10. In Open-Government.org it is possible to find a list of towns and companies that changed their software infrastructure and moved to Free Software. Among other things, the list includes some tangible examples, such as the one about the city of Treuchtlingen, describing how it changed its software infrastructure, what software is now in use and what problems arose in the transitional phase.

  11. GNU compilers and tools (e.g. gcc, flex, bison, gmake, cygwin) are widely applied in various industries (e.g. automotive, embedded, production control). Probably, every day each of us uses many products that were obtained thanks to these tools.

  12. The popular MacOS X multimedia operating system has a Darwin kernel, which was created in the Mach project. Many system programs or programs for individual users originated from FreeBSD and OpenBSD.

  13. Many companies already use Mozilla Firefox as browser, for example Finnish mobile company Nokia and IT company IBM.

  14. Content Management systems, such as Mambo, Joomla or Typo3, are used by many users, companies and institutions to maintain their internet web pages. For example, see the Typo3 users’ list.

  15. Openoffice.org displays a link in its web page to a great quantity of reference clients.

  16. OpenDocument was developed by OASIS-Gremium to enable users to freely exchange high level documents.

  17. The City of Vienna lets its collaborators choose freely whether they want to keep using proprietary software for their office work or change and go for Openoffice.org. In some workstations there is also the possibility of installing Wienux, a Debian-based system with KDE and Mozilla Firefox.

  18. GMX, one of the most popular German providers of e-mail services, uses SpamAssassin to filter junk mail.