21 of the Best Free to Download Closed-Source Applications
Software licenses stir up emotive feelings in the Linux
community. Licenses generally fall into one of two broad
categories: proprietary licenses and open source licenses. The type of
software license an application uses is significant in the effect it
has on the rights of the user of the application, and whether a
programmer chooses to contribute his or her time to its development.
For example, the founder of KDE (K Desktop Environment),
Matthias Ettrich, decided to use the Qt toolkit. At the
time, Qt did not use a free software license. Many
programmers interested in developing KDE strongly objected to
using Qt, and set about creating their own desktop environment (GNOME)
based entirely on freely distributable software.
Proprietary software (often closed-source) imposes
restrictions on what an end user can do with the application. The End
User License Agreement (EULA) may prevent users from modifying the
source code (or even the right to download it), copying or
republishing the software. Some software developers
(especially large corporations) regard proprietary software as being
more beneficial to their business. For example, releasing the
source code of their software may directly or
indirectly aid their competitors. However, many Linux users regard
proprietary software with disdain.
Organisations that produce Linux distributions also
frequently take a dim view of closed-source
software. For example, the Fedora Project encourages free and
open source to the extent that no proprietary software can be included
in Fedora. Although Ubuntu is also committed to free
software, it adopts a more pragmatic position by making it easy for
users to install non-free software.
Nevertheless, there's a surprising amount of free to download
Linux proprietary software that is being used, especially graphics drivers
(Nvidia, ATI), wireless firmware, MP3 Decoders, encrypted DVD support etc. However, the purpose of this article is to focus on more
heavyweight applications.
To provide an insight into the quality of free to download proprietary software that is available, we have compiled a list of 21 of the best closed-source
applications. Hopefully, there will be something of interest for anyone who does not loathe closed-source software.
Now, let's explore the 21 closed-source applications at hand.
For
each
title we have compiled its own portal page, providing a screenshot of
the software in action, a full description with an
in-depth analysis of
its features, together with links to relevant resources and reviews.
Return to our complete collection of Portal Pages.
Last Updated Saturday, June 06 2009 @ 03:03 AM EDT
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