KompoZer: Recomposing Nvu

One of the critical apps in any software ecosystem is a web authoring system. Until recently, the main free software offering was Nvu, but things had gone rather quiet on this front. With the launch of KompoZer, "Nvu's unofficial bug-fix release", we find out why:

Why call it «KompoZer» instead of «Nvu»? Because « Nvu and the Nvu logo are trademarks of Linspire Inc. » As Linspire stopped the development of Nvu, there is no legal way to correct any bug in Nvu.

God bless forks. Let's hope this time the project receives enough support from the community to join the open source pantheon of serious apps. (Via Linux.com.)

Portuguese Ministry of Education Goes Free

The Portuguese Ministry of Education is doing the sensible thing and giving away a CD full of free (Windows) software to 1.6 million students, saving itself (and the taxpayers) around 300 million Euros. Nothing amazing about that, perhaps, since it's a sensible thing to do (not that everyone does it).

What's more interesting, for me, at least, is the set of software included on the CD:

* OpenOffice.org
* Firefox
* Thunderbird
* NVU
* Inkscape
* GIMP

These are pretty much the cream of the free software world, and show the increasing depths of desktop apps. Also interesting are the specifically educational programs included:

* Freemind and CmapTools
* Celestia
* Geogebra
* JMOL
* Modellus

Some of these were new to me, notably Geogebra:

GeoGebra is a free and multi-platform dynamic mathematics software for schools that joins geometry, algebra and calculus.

and Modellus (which isn't actually free software, just free):

Modellus enables students and teachers (high school and college) to use mathematics to create or explore models interactively.

It's always surprised me that that more use isn't made of free software in education, since the benefits are obvious: by pooling efforts, duplication is eliminated, and the quality of tools improved. (Via Erwin Tenhumberg.)

Aptana: Apt for Success?

The line-up of cross-platform open source apps is pretty impressive, except in one area: Web design. Until now, all we've really had is Nvu, which is certainly very easy to use, but rather limited in terms of more advanced features.

But now here's Aptana, a "robust, JavaScript-focused IDE for building dynamic web applications". It's still early days yet, but judging by the screenshots, it looks promising. (Via Digg).