Open source software is basically a collaboration between programmers, in which lots of peoplpe contribute their expertise to a program and make it available for no fee. It has no copyrights, trademarks or patents and can be shared and distributed for free. Programmers do it to get help developing a program they need or to solve a problem and then because it’s not one persons sole property, they give it away for FREE.
Just a heads up, one thing with open source programs, they can be a little technical and not always user friendly for the non-programmer. Here’s the list of 5 the first 3 can be found at SourceForge.net:
1 – FREE Sound Editor
Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.
2 – FREE PDF creator
PDFCreator easily creates PDFs from any Windows program.Use it like a printer in Word, StarCalc or any other Windows application.
3 – FREE video editor
Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks.
It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs.
4 – Free Programming Language
gentee.com/
Gentee allows you to create applications of any complexity. Everyone can find something useful in Gentee. The language is concise and does not contain any complicated constructions and concepts. You can not only use Gentee for free, but also participate in its development.
5 – Freeware installer
createinstall.com/cifree/
CreateInstall FREE is free installer for computer users of any level.
The program has neither complicated settings nor many options. Nevertheless, it has all the basic features that you may need in 95% of installation packages.
