10 Open Source Projects that Could Use a Boost

Below are 10 open source projects that I think could use a little help.


10. Plane Shift - Does the world really need another MMO? Not at all, but the world does need one that is open source. I haven’t played this game since its pre-alpha days, but I know it is getting better. Once it gets to a more complete stage, I think we will start to see many projects branch from it and hopefully bring about even more of a change in the way companies see open source software.

9. GIMP - Sure GIMP is getting closer to being just like PhotoShop, but why not have it be better? This is one key program for having designers make this shift to a Linux based desktop; at least I know it is for me.

8. Pligg - A Digg-like CMS that aims to, well, be like Digg. They are still in Beta (as is the trend now days) and still have a lot of bugs to work out.

7. Battelzone Second Edition - There is no doubt that BZ was an amazing game, no matter what you played it on. This project aims to reproduce the version for the PC. Personally it is the best game I have ever played. There is a lot of help needed, so please see if you can lend a hand.

6. Joomla - This is a great CMS from the people who created Mambo. They have a great version out right now, but I would like to see them capture the 'web 2.0' wave and add Ajax functionality to it, among other things.

5. Gaim - Down with all those stupid ads! Gaim is a great all-in-one messenger, but still has some work to do on getting all those features to work, and to keep track of the updates for all those messengers.

4. Wine - Many people, including myself, complain about not having their windows applications (games) able to run on Linux. Well that is why Wine exists, but it's still not at a 1.0 release. I would love to see this project developed faster.

3. Open Office - A great alternative to Microsoft word. Hopefully it will give people another reason to switch to Linux. It would be great if it was better than MS Word though.

2. Linux - The kernel to be specific. With the release of 2.6 people are noticing more bugs. This is good because they are being found, but we don't want to turn into Microsoft.

1. Ubuntu - This Linux distro is taking the world by storm. If there was ever a time is take people from Microsoft, the time is now. With MS delaying Vista even more, and Dapper Drake on the horizon, it's now more than ever that they have a change to become the corporation they want to be, and they have my full support.


There you have it, 10 open source projects that could use your help. I hope you will take a look at them and see what you can do.

God bless,
-Dustin