eWeek has another interesting feature in which they present a list of the most important open-source applications in a series of slides. See if you agree with their appraisal, or if you have more to add to the list.

Below is the full list, with my own comments tackled on.

• Linux Kernel - What more do you want to say about this. It all started from here.
• BSD - Heavily in use in the early web and still very much in use today. Boasts an impressive security track record.
• Apache - If there is a father of all open-source applications, then this would be it. Not the first web server, but definitely one of the longest around.
• Nessus - The vulnerability assessment tool that made security testing available to the masses.
• Firefox - I’m using it. The light-weight alternatively that just grew and grew in popularity.
• Nmap - The stuff of (hacking) legends. Makes pen testing ridiculously easy. Now comes with

advanced OS fingerprinting too.

• Wireshark - Of Ethereal fame. Now called Wireshark.
• Perl - THE scripting language. Still very much in use.
• PHP - De-facto programming language of the Web. Every hosting company out there will definately have PHP available as an option at least.
• VNC - There are many copycats and variant projects now; especially on Windows. But it all started from the original VNC.
• Webmin - Web-based administration
• Asterisk - A recent hero and an avid reminder on the power of open-source.
• OpenOffice.org - Open. Office. What more need I say.
• MySQL - Might not be able to compete feature-wise with the other “enterprise” offerings, but will probably hum along just fine with most websites.
• Nagios - System and network monitoring at your service.
• Eclipse - More and more development tools are based on this.
• Samba - Windows compatible file and print services at your service.
• OpenSSH and OpenSSL - The backbone of a huge chunk of encryption dependent services.

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