by Chris Koch

Open-source alternatives to proprietary software

News
Mar 15, 20031 min
Open Source

Proprietary Open Source
Web browser
Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Mozilla (based on Netscape)
Web server
Microsoft IIS, Netscape Apache (60 percent of all websites run it)
Application server
WebMethods (includes opensource JBoss application) JBoss (2 million downloads in 2002); Apache Tomcat (most WebSphere widely used application server)
Office suite
Microsoft Office, Corel WordPerfect Office OpenOffice.org (based on Sun’s proprietary StarOffice)
E-mail/collaboration
Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes Ximian Evolution
Database

Oracle9i, IBM DB2, currentlyMicrosoft SQL Server Trial

MySQL, PostgreSQL (both lack the power and depth of industrial-strength Oracle and DB2)