The educational community has discovered open source tools in a big way. Analysts predict that schools will spend up to $489.9 million on support and services for open source software by 2012, and that only includes charges related to operating systems and learning management systems.

The educational community has discovered open source tools in a big way. Analysts predict that schools will spend up to $489.9 million on support and services for open source software by 2012, and that only includes charges related to operating systems and learning management systems.

If you want to embrace open operating systems, quit the Microsoft monopoly or the Apple cult, Ubuntu is one of the most powerful operating systems based on the popular open source Linux kernel. It can do everything that the costly operating systems, only oh so much more, and for free!

Enterprises are still in the early days of mobile application development, but the growing evidence suggests they should focus time and resources on cross-mobile-device applications. The problem is that with so many mobile devices and operating systems in play, IT just can't build for even a sampling, never mind the whole lot.

The scent of money in the air probably also explains why there are so many open source enterprise applications available. In other categories, like open source browsers, for instance, you'll struggle to find half a dozen good choices. To help you get started on the process, here are 101 open source enterprise applications.

About a year ago, we took a look at the growing trend toward open-source security and highlighted 10 of the best apps available. Since then, the area has continued to mature, and now we're back highlighting 75 of the most frequently downloaded open-source security applications.

Sure, Android's open platform might someday put every OSS mobile app and tool you can imagine into the palm of your hand. Or not. Meantime, here's a lineup of existing mobile applications and tools for work, play and organization.

When I first started using Ubuntu some 3 years ago, I found it really hard to get applications similar to the ones I used in Windows. After browsing for a long time, I made this amazing discovery. You don't have to look for "similar" apps, you can have even better apps here in Ubuntu/Linux.

This year, we've once again updated our list of top open source security apps. While the list isn't exhaustive by any means, we tried to include many of the best tools in a variety of categories."