The Most Important Open-Source Apps of All Time

May 28, 2012

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1The Most Important Open-Source Apps of All Time

The Apache Web server is the only open-source app not only to lead but to dominate in market share (and that includes domination over Microsofts offering in this area, Internet Information Se

2The Most Important Open-Source Apps of All Time – Linux Kernel

The Linux kernel project is, quite simply, the engine that drives much of the open-source software world.

3The Most Important Open-Source Apps of All Time – Nessus

Nessus, a vulnerability assessment tool, made security testing of IT infrastructure available to the masses.

4The Most Important Open-Source Apps of All Time – Firefox

Mozilla predated it, but Firefox reignited the browser wars.

5The Most Important Open-Source Apps of All Time – Perl

Although it pre-dates the Web, the Perl scripting language powered the first Web applications.

6The Most Important Open-Source Apps of All Time – Wireshark

Wireshark, formerly called Ethereal, is a protocol analyzer that opened the world of network and application troubleshooting to rank-and-file IT staff.

7The Most Important Open-Source Apps of All Time – PHP

PHP is the main open-source option for building dynamic Web sites.

8The Most Important Open-Source Apps of All Time – VNC

VNC, or Virtual Network Computing, provides remote desktop access — free and easy.

9The Most Important Open-Source Apps of All Time – BSD

BSD was one of the main server platforms for the early Web and is still in use at many sites.

10The Most Important Open-Source Apps of All Time – Webmin

Bringing Web-based administration to the land of Unix- and Linux-based servers, Webmin offers management modules for scores of different applications.

11The Most Important Open-Source Apps of All Time – Asterisk

Asterisk has removed the closed-box mystery of telephony systems.

12The Most Important Open-Source Apps of All Time – Nmap

Nmap is a ridiculously useful app for pen testing devices and networks before going live.

13The Most Important Open-Source Apps of All Time – OpenOffice.org

The OpenOffice office productivity suite answered many organizations prayers for a cheaper, sleeker alternative to Microsoft Office.

14The Most Important Open-Source Apps of All Time – MySQL

Its not the right database choice for large enterprise jobs, but MySQL is reliable and speedy, not to mention much simpler than the DB platform behemoths.

15The Most Important Open-Source Apps of All Time – Nagios

System and network monitoring was jolted by Nagios, pushing high-end commercial products to innovate while making monitoring a possibility for small and mid-sized organizations.

16The Most Important Open-Source Apps of All Time – Eclipse

Its becoming harder and harder to find development tools that arent based on Eclipse.

17The Most Important Open-Source Apps of All Time – Samba

Samba provides systems running Linux and Unix with Windows-compatible file and print services.

18The Most Important Open-Source Apps of All Time – OpenSSH and OpenSSL

OpenSSH and OpenSSL help keep the Webs secrets secret.

19The Most Important Open-Source Apps of All Time – What Did We Miss?

What did we miss? What’s here that shouldnt be? Drop a line to Debra Donston at debra_donston@ziffdavis.com and we may include your choice in a future slideshow.

20The Most Important Open-Source Apps of All Time

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