This page was previously located under my Open Source in Education because it was originally created as part of that project. I have moved it here because this page contains many useful links for all those interested in using open source software! 

Although the table below was created to show which open source software applications fill the same role as its proprietary counter part, I would like to highlight alternatives to the most commonly use applications. I will start with OpenOffice. OO, short for OpenOffice, is a very powerful open source office suite that rivals Microsoft Office®. It can open and create MS Office files with exceptional compatibility allowing easy sharing of files. OO's Writer is compatible with MS Office's Word, OO's Impress is compatible with PowerPoint, OO's Calc is compatible with Excel, and OO's Base can be used as a replacement for Access. In addition to the normal office packages, OpenOffice comes with Draw, which is a vector drawing program, and it also comes with Math, which is a program for inserting equations and formulas into your documents. Read what Paul Nelson, from Riverdale Grade School in Portland, Oregon states on the topic of migration to Linux based desktop applications, "We  offered very little training. I just showed students that they could save  StarOffice files as .doc .rtf and .ppt files for use on Windows  workstations. The kids picked up on it right away and enjoyed configuring  their desktops and work environments." (http://k12ltsp.org/casestudy.html)

For those who teach desktop publishing/graphic design and web site design, there are excellent open source alternatives to the mainstream programs. Starting with desktop/publishing/graphic design, GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a software program that has many of the same capabilities as Adobe Photoshop. GIMP can even open and save Photoshop (psd) files and use Photoshop plug-ins. Inkscape is a vector drawing program that is similar to Adobe Illustrator. Finally, for those who need a page layout program, there is Scribus. For website designers there is a program called Nvu. Nvu rivals both Microsoft FrontPage and Macromedia Dreamweaver.

The purpose of this website is to persuade the audience that the exclusive use of free open source software is a viable and high cost effective alternative to using Windows and Apple computers.  However, I realize that few will probably be ready to make that switch in the near future. For these individuals/school districts you will be happy to know that many of the free open source software programs listed below run on well on Windows and an increasing number of free open source software is becoming available for MacOSX. In addition I have also listed some non open source free alternatives to mainstream software!