open source alternatives to well know software ,

marclaurens

avoid downloading copied software with viruses and trojans attached or paying money when you can download open source alternatives for free.

I saw the article on openoffice which is gaining popularity as an alternative to microsoft office. I thought i would direct your attention to osalt.com which lists a lot of major pay for software and open source alternatives and the location to download etc.


www.osalt.com enjoy.

oldagetraveller

Agreed, recently downloaded open office to a new laptop after getting rid of the pre-installed M$ office trial software.
Slight differences but basically the same and for nowt.

superscaper

I disagree slightly. Openoffice is great but I'd equate it to MS Office 2003. I've currently got MS Office 2007 Ultimate and find it superior to the current Openoffice and well worth what I paid for it. Especially with things like Outlook which there isn't an alternative to if you want to sync properly with other things (e.g. my mobile and pda) and Onenote is pretty good as well. Visio also works quite well with other software I've got that isn't compatible with alternatives. Full retail price they probably aren't worth it but I suspect very few people actually pay full retail for MS stuff.

isofa

I couldn't even compare OpenOffice to Office 2003, it's fine for basic users, but for power users, it can't really compete to Office 2003 - but then it is free!

I wonder how many custom apps from bespoke databases in Access to financial systems in Excel (all completely written in VBA) could be re-written in OO?!

With Microsoft offering very cheap deals to home/student editions of Office, there is still an option to get a world class office suite for peanuts.

But obviously, for less than peanuts, OO is great - I'm not knocking it! But as a power-user and professional, for me it's effectively useless.

Has marclaurens wiped Windows from his laptop and installed a flavour of open source Linux yet?!

superscaper

Was about to say that open source doesn't necessarily mean freeware (and vice versa) when I saw this on the site "And remember that open source software is also a freeware alternative." which isn't true at all and extremely misleading, you'd think those touting open source and freeware would know the difference between them.

At the moment on my pc as far as MS office software I've got:
Word 2007
Excel 2007
Publisher 2007
Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager
Powerpoint 2007
Groove 2007
Access 2007
Infopath 2007
Onenote 2007
Project Professional 2007
Visio Professional 2007

My total expenditure for these (legally licensed/owned) is about £39. It may be possible to trawl though and find some kind of freeware alternative for each but I doubt they will be as functional and certainly not cohesive and coherent with each other, and I think the cost isn't that much greater than free especially the amount of time I'd have to put in to gathering and mainaining the alternatives and setting them up just right (if they even work together properly at all). Freeware can be great but it isn't necessarily by definition the better option and in some cases it seems to be a justification for immature Microsoft demonising which I used to do myself when I was about 13!

marclaurens

superscraper. The software you list that you are licenced to use for £39 is not generally available at that price or anything close. im not doubting that the software is legal. It's just that to legally obtain fully functional licenced retail microsoft products does not come cheap. How can we get the same deal?

marclaurens

isofa wrote: »

I couldn't even compare OpenOffice to Office 2003, it's fine for basic users, but for power users, it can't really compete to Office 2003 - but then it is free!

I wonder how many custom apps from bespoke databases in Access to financial systems in Excel (all completely written in VBA) could be re-written in OO?!

With Microsoft offering very cheap deals to home/student editions of Office, there is still an option to get a world class office suite for peanuts.

But obviously, for less than peanuts, OO is great - I'm not knocking it! But as a power-user and professional, for me it's effectively useless.

Has marclaurens wiped Windows from his laptop and installed a flavour of open source Linux yet?!

umm , all of them im guessing. openoffice has openoffice basic which is based on the basic language just as visual basic for applications is. In additon the openoffice api allows for integration with existing systems and program control using languages such as java,python, c++ so i would say that open office is a pretty versatile environment for creating all manner of applications and being open source a thriving community exists providing added functionality and improvements all the time, a cursory look at the openoffice.org site will confirm.

I dont own a laptop . my home pc is windows xp sp2.

superscaper

marclaurens wrote: »

superscraper. The software you list that you are licenced to use for £39 is not generally available at that price or anything close. im not doubting that the software is legal. It's just that to legally obtain fully functional licenced retail microsoft products does not come cheap. How can we get the same deal?

In my case I got it through my student registration at a university. www.theultimatesteal.com.uk, but there are also really cheap deals if you work for the NHS and your own employer or educational institution may have licence agreements with MS. Not everyone will be eligible for those products but it is possible if you are to get it a lot cheaper.

[Deleted User]

OpenOffice is okay for people that have never used MS Office 2007, but for features there is no comparision, MS have the upper hand.

It is a shame the scheme superscaper has mentioned www.theultimatesteal.co.uk is not open to more people, because I think this is one way Microsoft would help to stop piracy.

random456

i downloaded openoffice which was good but i only wanted a word equivalent and not all the extra progs, so someone suggested i download abiword which is free and opens and saves in word format so you can open word format documents and save as word so friends with word can open abiword files, i'm very pleased with it.

digitig

superscaper wrote: »

Was about to say that open source doesn't necessarily mean freeware (and vice versa) when I saw this on the site "And remember that open source software is also a freeware alternative." which isn't true at all and extremely misleading, you'd think those touting open source and freeware would know the difference between them.

There is a difference, but their statement is correct. Open source is always freeware, but freeware is not always open source.

To avoid having to scour the net for open source software, there's always Open Source Alternative (http://www.osalt.com/) which gives open source alternatives (hence the name) to mainstream commercial products. Functionality of the stuff they point to is usually very high, although the interfaces will be different. That comes down to a matter of taste (I'm an MS Office power user, and find v2003 vastly superior to v2007, but de gustibus as they say.