Computer technology was born out of a community of collaboration and knowledge sharing. In the early 1980s the practice of sharing efforts and ideas was losing momentum. Richard Stallman, taking the initiative to restore the culture he endeared, founded the GNU Project and Free Software Foundation.
GNU and FSF are cornerstones of modern Copyleft. Copyleft intends to remind persons of freedoms which Copyright takes away and allow them to share these liberties with others. Software Libre is so named to remind us of the distinction between financially free (gratis) and freedoms, which are granted (libre.)
License Choice
Most software users receive comes packaged under various EULAs [End-User License Agreements.] All of these applications are released under the GNU's Not Unix General Public License. The GNU GPL is a liberating license designed [and recently re-designed] to promote software freedom. The freedoms at stake are individuals' ability to access software, examine it's structure, modify the structure to suit one's needs and give a copy of [or redistribute] the software to a friend or person in need.
It is a principal of GNUmedia to promote, first and foremost, licenses which preserve the freedoms which they allow.
Those of you familiar with OSS [Open Source Software] and OSS licenses might wonder why GNUmedia is not promoting software, on this page, which is released under other licenses - even GPL compatible licenses.
Further reading:
- Why not LGPL? by Free Software Foundation
- Freedom or Power? by Bradley M. Kuhn and Richard M. Stallman
The following tools are protected by the gnu_gpl.
Animation and Illustration
| Name | Short Description | Linux | Macintosh | Windows | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apophysis | Fractal design and animation interface. | ♥ | ♥ | ||
| Blender3D | 3D content creation suite. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ | |
| Inkscape | Vector Illustration with Jabber integration. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ | |
| Pencil Sketching | Design software including software GUI design. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ | |
| Synfig | Film-Quality 2D Vector Animation. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ |
Audio
| Name | Short Description | Linux | Macintosh | Windows | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aldrin | Modular music sequencer/tracker. | ♥ | |||
| Ardour | Digital Audio Workstation | ♥ | ♥ | ||
| Audacity | Multi-Track Recording. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ | |
| GNU Solfege | Smarten your ears. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ | |
| Hydrogen | Advanced beat sequencer. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ | |
| LilyPond | Sheet music layout(ASCII input.) | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ | |
| LMMS | Linux MultiMedia Studio | ♥ | ♥ | ||
| OpenMPT | Tracker interface music sequencing. | ♥ | |||
| Psycle | Modular music creation studio with tracker interface. | ♥ | |||
| Rosegarden | Audio/MIDI sequencer. | ♥ | |||
| ZynAddSubFX | Software synthesizer capable of making a countless number of instruments. | ♥ | ♥ |
Photography
| Name | Short Description | Linux | Macintosh | Windows | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| digiKam | Photo organizer/tagger. | ♥ | |||
| Eye of Gnome | Photo browser/viewer. | ♥ | |||
| The GIMP | GNU Image Manipulation Program. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ | |
| Hugin | Panoramic photo stitcher. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ |
Video
| Name | Short Description | Linux | Macintosh | Windows | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avidemux | Video cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ | |
| Gephex | Modular multimedia synthesis and manipulation. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ | |
| Cinelerra CV | Non-linear video editing. | ♥ | |||
| Jashaka | Hardware accelerate editing and effects system. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ | |
| Kdenlive | Open Source video for GNU/Linux. | ♥ | |||
| Kino | Non-Linear Digital Video Editor. | ♥ | |||
| LiVES | Live Video Mixing Application. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ | |
| WinFF | Video conversion tool. | ♥ | ♥ |
Document Layout
| Name | Short Description | Linux | Macintosh | Windows | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scribus | Design precisely the layout you want for your document. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ | |
| Lyx | What You See Is What You Mean document processor. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ |
Communications
| Name | Short Description | Linux | Macintosh | Windows | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coccinella | A chat application with whiteboard. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ | |
| Ekiga | VoIP and video conferencing application. | ♥ | ♥ | ||
| Pidgin | Instant messaging client that supports many commonly used instant messaging protocols. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ | |
| Twinkle | VoIP and instant messaging communications using the Session Initiation Protocol. | ♥ | |||
| OpenWengo | A softphone which allows you to make free PC to PC video and voice calls, and to integrate all your IM contacts in one place. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ |
Media Players
| Name | Short Description | Linux | Macintosh | Windows | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elisa | Media center solution. | ♥ | |||
| VLC media player | Highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ |
Utilities
| Name | Short Description | Linux | Macintosh | Windows | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agave | Color scheme creator. | ♥ | |||
| eXe | SCORM/e-learning content creation. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ | |
| Gobby | Collaborative text editor. Syntax highlighting. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ | |
| Purrr | Bulk file re-namer. | ♥ |
Navigation
| Name | Short Description | Linux | Macintosh | Windows | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GpsDrive | A car (bike, ship, plane) navigation system. | ♥ | |||
| RoadMap | Car navigation system. | ♥ | |||
| Roadnav | open source street navigation solution. | ♥ | ♥ | ♥ |