Once upon a time, there was Sun's OpenOffice

Sun, was the company behind OpenOffice.org (and other major open source projects such as MySQL, VirtualBox OSE, and OpenSolaris). By January 2010, Sun was aquired by Oracle.

Oracle, and let me put this straight, are people who don't give a darn about open source.

So why don't more small businesses opt for open source?

First, many small business owners simply aren't aware of the number and variety of high quality open source software available for them. Because open source projects generally don't have the same kind of marketing dollars behind them as commercial options, they can be a lot tougher to find.

As these tools mature, it's becoming more and more difficult to sort them into categories. Some blogging platforms are robust enough to build an entire site. Content management systems often have some features you usually find in Web app development frameworks, and text editors begin to look more and more like full integrated development environments (IDEs).

While that makes it tougher to organize our lists, it's good news for designers and developers. As Web tools offer more features, it makes Web professionals' jobs easier, and it opens up new opportunities for hobbyist and home users whose coding skills might not be as well developed.

Some members of the community refuse to accept GPL'ed source code into their projects, although other members of the community strongly prefer GPL'ed source code over other licenses. Contrast with code under BSD-etal., LGPL, or Mozilla PL 1.1, which nobody refuses to accept.

Subversion is an open source revision control system, similar in purpose to the well-known, widely deployed, and aging CVS. It is designed to provide state-of-the-art versioning, built from modern technologies.