Small and home businesses (SOHO) can benefit greatly from using open-source software applications. Cynthia Harveys offers a tasty buffet of 50 to get you started.

Despite the wealth of free applications out there, many small business owners continue to spend an inordinate amount of their all-too-scarce resources on software. Microsoft Office 2010? That'll be $499.99 -- or $279.99 if you can do without the Professional version. QuickBooks 2010? $159.95 or more. Adobe PhotoShop CS5? A whopping $699.

People contribute to free software in many ways. Some write the stuff; some write *about* the stuff, spreading the word; and some actually spread open source directly by giving away systems to those who need them. We hear a lot about the stars of first group, and the second group make a lot of noise on their own. But too often we take the third group for granted.

When it comes to businesses using open source software, medium and large enterprises seem to get most of the press. However, small office/home office (SOHO) setups with 10 employees or less may see even greater benefit from switching to open source applications.

The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is the group that decides whether a software license merits a seal of approval as actual, genuine open source software. It has never been a secret group -- its license-discuss email list has always been open to all comers, for example -- but not many open source users or developers know who belongs to the board or what they do.

There is no doubt that 3 February 1998 was a historic day. For it was then, at a meeting in Mountain View, that a small group led by Eric Raymond came up with the term “open source” as an alternative to the description “free software”. The question is, will history count 21 June 2007 as another such pivotal moment – the day that Open Source 2.0 was born?

Eighteen short months ago, Taiwanese manufacturer Asus debuted the Eee, the netbook that launched the latest craze for small, lightweight, inexpensive laptops. And then they got to work – creating new open source apps specifically for the Eee and similar netbooks.

I made this list because I realized how long it took, for me, to discover even a small portion of these apps when I first started using Linux. Hopefully someone new to Linux or looking for programs they have never used finds this helpful.

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.