A long, long time ago, when Mac users ran System 6/7/8/9, windows were things you looked through. Apart from version 3 (and lately Vista) which for some weird reason was installed on generic computers, with the reasoning they were the equivalent of IBM’s Mac’s and Sun’s fancy GUI operating systems.

In those old times, way before the turn of the century, open source software was not something Mac users needed. There were one or two little programs, many still around today and some which weren’t even open source but free software provided by their publishers out of the goodness of their hearts. Such as Adobe Type Manager to render Postscript fonts, Stuffit for stuffing, Netscape and others for browsing. Meanwhile, the rarified atmosphere of *nix-based operating systems seemed totally reliant on free software, largely because there wasn’t much else.

What a change has taken place since then. Nowadays, governments and industry have already switched or are thinking of using an increasing amount of free, open source software. Usually this is driven by their need to drop the enormous fees charged for licensing proprietary suites, such as Microsoft’s many offerings. Sometimes it’s because there is no alternative. The arrival of the Asus Eee, complete with GNU/Linux and Elonex’s sub-£100 Linux powered laptops are showing that Microsoft will need to reconsider its marketing strategy. It’s closed systems cost far more than a laptop complete with OS and applications for much of the tasks the average computer user needs. Especially in the light of the National Laptop Initiative which could see Microsoft locked-out of future generations completely if schools adopt open source operating systems.

Others such as Apple, usually considered the expensive option, have started to look increasingly cost-effective as many essential elements are built-in for free with no pay-per-seat charges. There is only one version of Mac OS X – the full monty including mail, web and ftp servers, software development tools and so on. In addition, there are the vast libraries of Unix software, much of which will run on Mac OS X under Apple’s X11 X Window System, an optional install on the System disks.

What’s on offer?
It is perfectly possible to run with only free open source software and still be able to swap files to and from mainstream applications. Microsoft’s Office is replicated by NeoOffice, which is often more reliable than the real thing. Adobe’s Photoshop and Illustrator can be supplanted by Gimp, Seashore and Inkscape; QuarkXPress or InDesign replaced with Scribus. While these tools are for designers, just about any other task is covered by open source and shareware rather than paid-for and often extremely expensive applications.

Where do you get it?
In addition to the usual Mac download sites such as Versiontracker and Macupdate, both of which are worth checking regularly, we use two main sources for free software and shareware. The first is Apple’s own site and the largest library which also contains updates, demos and paid-for/shareware. The software has all been tested by Apple - with no guarantees.

The second library, Opensourcemac is far smaller than Apple’s but all of the software has been given a thorough work-out by Mac users and represents that which they consider to be the best in the field.

Give them a look and it’s guaranteed you’ll spend an hour or two downloading new tools, games and add-ons.