Call to go Open Source (before it's too late!)
There are a great many worthy software packages that have died because they didn't go Open Source (or did it too late, like Netscape). I highlight a few important packages here that are in need of going Open Source before it's too late.Java
This was getting down to the wire, but it looks like Schwartz has pulled the bacon out of the fire.The People Who Brought You FOSS Java
And Sun Said, Set My Java Free: The Open Source
Q&A
OpenStep
OpenStep (nee NextStep) is the nifty Objective-C GUI library that powers Cocoa applications on Mac OS X. Contrary to the name, it isn't "Open" (the "Open" refers to the API spec which NeXT developed with Sun). There is a valiant OSS effort http://www.gnustep.org/ working to implement OpenStep and some
of the Cocoa API, but it just isn't the same thing.