"One that conceals and forbids any changes in functionality,
while the other is open and encourages customization to fit ones
needs. The conversation naturally goes from there to giving
examples of Open Source programs this person might be using
unwittingly. Here are 7 programs that the whole Open Source
community is very proud of.
VLC
VLC media player is an open source player, encoder, and streamer
that supports a wide variety of audio and video codecs in addition
to DVD support. This little piece of heaven is almost fully
platform independent, boasting a portfolio of supported OSes such
as Windows, Mac, Linux, BeOS, BSD, and Solaris. It is almost the
answer to any codec woes. "X file is not working", a quick "install
VLC" would probably be the answer. I discovered VLC back in my
dial-up days (not very far away 2003), when I wanted to view
incomplete e-mule files. Someone in the e-Mule IRC channel
recommended it to me. I swear by it since then!"
