Kata “open source” pertama kali muncul pada sebuah rapat di Palo Alto California. Ketika itu, Netscape yang merupakan pengembang browser Navigator ingin melepaskan kode sumber dari produk dengan nama Mozilla di bulan Januari 1998. Merekan ingin membedakan diri dan menghindari konfrontasi ideologis maupun konotatif dengan istilah Free Software yang dipelopori oleh Richard Stallman. Para penggagas istilah open source adalah : Christine Peterson, Todd Anderson, Larry Augustin, Jon Hall, Sam Ockman, and Eric S. Raymond.

Istilah “open source” ini kemudian menjadi terkenal setelah dipublikasikan oleh tim O’Reilly melalui sebuah event yang diadakan di bulan April 1999. Event ini dihadiri oleh para selebritis IT yang terlibat dalam project-project free open source, seperti Linus Torvallds (penemu Linux), Larry Wall, Brian Behlendorf, Eric, Allman, Guido van Rossum (pembuat python), Michael Tieman, Paul Vixie, Jamie Zawinski dari Netscape, dan Eric Raymond.

Untuk menjaga perkembangan dunia open source, dibentuklah sebuah badan yang disebut Open Source Initiative. Badan ini didirikan tahu 1998 oleh Eric S. Raymond dan Bruce Perens. Definisi open source yang digunakan disini Debian Free Software Guidelines.

Software-software Open Source :

WEB BROWSING

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  Mozilla Firefox

  The premier free, open-source browser. Tabs, pop-up blocking, themes, and extensions. Considered by many to be the world's best browser.

VIDEO PLAYER, BITTORRENT, PODCASTING

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  Miro

  Beautiful interface. Plays any video type (much more than windows media player). Subscribe to video RSS, download, and watch all in one. Torrent support. Search and download from YouTube and others.
  
  

IM - INSTANT MESSAGING

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  Pidgin

  Connect to multiple IM accounts simultaneously in a single app, including: AOL IM, MSN, and Jabber.

VIDEO CONVERTER- MP4, IPHONE, ANDROID

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  Miro Video Converter

  Convert any type of video to mp4 or theora. Convert any video for use with iPhone, iPod, Android, etc. Very clean, easy to use interface.

DOWNLOAD HELPERS

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  SkipScreen

  A Firefox extension that skips unnecessary clicks and wait times on Rapidshare, Megaupload, Mediafire, zShare, and more.

E-MAIL

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  Mozilla Thunderbird

  Powerful spam filtering, solid interface, and all the features you need.
  
  

RSS

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  RSSOwl

  Solid cross-platform RSS client.

PEER-TO-PEER FILESHARING

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  Cabos

  A simple, easy to use filesharing program. Gnutella network.
  
  
  
  
  
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  Gnucleus

  A very good Gnutella search and download filesharing program.

VIDEO PLAYBACK

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  Miro

  Beautiful interface. Plays any video type (much more than windows media player). Subscribe to video RSS, download, and watch all in one. Torrent support. Search and download from YouTube and others.
  
  
  
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  VLC

  Plays more video files than most players: Quicktime, AVI, DIVX, OGG, and more. Pretty good interface.
  
  
  
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  MPlayer

  Similar to VLC-- plays loads of video formats.
  
  
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  Media Player Classic

  Compact, but powerful media player. Plays anything under the sun. No install necessary.
  
  

WORD PROCESSING / OFFICE SUITES

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  LibreOffice

  Big, full featured suite of tools for word processing and spreadsheets. Compatible with and a free replacement for Microsoft Word documents. Also supports OpenDocument Format.
  
  
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  AbiWord

  A word processor. Leaner and quicker than OpenOffice. Compatible with Microsoft Word documents and OpenDocument Format.

PODCASTING

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  Juice

  Solid podcasting client.
  
  

FINANCIAL TRANSACTIONS

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  Bitcoin

  A "peer-to-peer" digital currency so you can buy things without paying transaction fees.
  
  
  
  

SOUND RECORDING

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  Audacity

  Simple sound recording tool.
  

GRAPHICS / PHOTO EDITING

 

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  GIMP

  Photo editing application that rivals Photoshop in features.
  
  
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  Inkscape

  Vector graphics application.
  

FTP / SFTP

 

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  Filezilla

  Solid podcasting client.
  
  

IRC

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  X-Chat 2

  IRC client.
  
  
  
  

ARCHIVING

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PeaZip

Fantastic archiving utility to extract and pack archives of an extensive amount of formats. PeaZip also features password protecting archives, keyfile support, system integration, a lovely interface, and much more.g,