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Happy FLOSS for Easter - Tom vs. the AIs

   Apr 8, 2023     7 min read

Happy Easter! If you’re just picking up now, my Lent goal was to write something about a different Free, Libre, Open Source (FLOSS) application every day for lent…and I made it!

For each of those posts, I put a (slightly different due to formatting limitations) excerpt to the following places:

By far the most engagement I got was in the Reddit subreddit. Followed by my facebook page. I got a tiny amount on the Matrix channel and almost nothing on Twitter/Mastodon (maybe because I’ve never really posted to those sites before, so don’t have any followers?).

Tom vs. the AIs

Over the last few months, there has been a rise of AI websites that can generate things. Mostly at this point that is either writing or images. I used OpenAI’s DALL-E generator (note, OpenAI is not open in any of the senses used in FLOSS) to generate the graphic for this post, fun!

However, I wanted to see how smart these different writing generators could be. I’ve spent thousands of hours over the past ~20 years in the FLOSS community, reading about different applications, trying them, even contributing back to them. I’d like to think that the list I came up with this lent is pretty well informed, while realizing that if I asked anyone else in the community to come up with a similar list there would definitely be differences.

If you haven’t been following all lent, here’s the list I came up with:

Now I asked three different generative AI engines the following:

Create a list of forty Free Software or Open Source applications that would be useful to end users

Here’s what they came up with…

OpenAI’s ChatGPT

LibreOffice - Office Suite
GIMP - Image Editing
Inkscape - Vector Graphics Editor
Blender - 3D Animation and Graphics
Scribus - Desktop Publishing
Audacity - Audio Editing
Kdenlive - Video Editing
Shotcut - Video Editing
OBS Studio - Screen Recording and Live Streaming
VLC - Media Player
HandBrake - Video Transcoding
qBittorrent - Torrent Client
Transmission - Torrent Client
Brave - Web Browser
Mozilla Firefox - Web Browser
Thunderbird - Email Client
Evolution - Email Client
KeePassXC - Password Manager
VeraCrypt - Disk Encryption
VirtualBox - Virtualization
FreeCAD - 3D Modeling
KiCAD - Electronics Design Automation
Darktable - RAW Image Processing
RawTherapee - RAW Image Processing
Musescore - Music Notation
Calibre - E-book Management
PDFsam - PDF Split and Merge
OBS Studio - Screen Recording and Live Streaming
OpenShot - Video Editing
GnuCash - Personal Finance
Bluefish - Web Development
Audacious - Audio Player
Ardour - Digital Audio Workstation
Krita - Digital Painting
Pidgin - Instant Messaging
HexChat - IRC Client
GnuPG - Email Encryption
Tor - Anonymity Online
7-Zip - File Archiver
FileZilla - FTP Client

Not bad, there’s a lot of commonality between that list and mine. Of the things that it added, I had heard of all but one of them (PDFsam, seems like a freemium app).

I said “applications” in the question, so it seemed to really focus on things that you can install on an end user system. Leaving out some of the network or android based things. This probably means more that I need to refine the prompt than anything bad about ChatGPT.

Microsoft’s Bing

I found a few lists of open-source software that you might find useful. Here are some of the applications that I found:

1. GIMP - Image editor
2. LibreOffice - Office suite
3. VLC Media Player - Media player
4. Audacity - Audio editor
5. Inkscape - Vector graphics editor
6. Blender - 3D graphics creation suite
7. Krita - Digital painting software
8. Darktable - Photography workflow application
9. Kdenlive - Video editor
10. Handbrake - Video transcoder
You can find more applications in these lists:

Best open source software of 2023 | TechRadar
The best free, open-source software for everyday PC users | PCWorld
I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions or if there’s anything else I can help you with.

Those are good things, but the list was pretty far short of 40 applications. Interestingly, mostly media focused. I responded by asking it to expand the list.

That wasn't 40 things, can you expand the list?

It’s response, ten more:

I apologize for the confusion. Here are some more open-source software that you might find useful:

11. GnuCash - Accounting software
12. KeePass - Password manager
13. Calibre - E-book manager
14. Firefox - Web browser
15. Thunderbird - Email client
16. OpenOffice - Office suite
17. Scribus - Desktop publishing software
18. Notepad++ - Text editor
19. VirtualBox - Virtualization software
20. 7-Zip - File archiver
You can find more applications in these lists:

Best open source software of 2023 | TechRadar
The best free, open-source software for everyday PC users | PCWorld
I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions or if there’s anything else I can help you

I guess we could get there, but this seems to take a bit more effort.

Google’s Bard

Here is a list of forty free software or open source applications that would be useful to end users:

1. Audacity is a free and open-source audio editor and recorder. It is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Audacity can be used to record and edit audio files, create podcasts, and produce music.
2. Blender is a free and open-source 3D creation suite. It is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Blender can be used to create 3D models, animations, and games.
3. CCleaner is a free and open-source system optimization and cleaning tool. It is available for Windows. CCleaner can be used to clean your computer's registry, remove temporary files, and uninstall programs.
4. Chrome is a free and open-source web browser developed by Google. It is available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS. Chrome is a fast and secure web browser with a variety of features, including extensions, incognito mode, and autofill.
5. Firefox is a free and open-source web browser developed by Mozilla. It is available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS. Firefox is a fast and secure web browser with a variety of features, including extensions, private browsing, and a built-in password manager.
6. GIMP is a free and open-source image editor. It is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. GIMP can be used to edit photos, create graphics, and design websites.
7. Inkscape is a free and open-source vector graphics editor. It is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Inkscape can be used to create illustrations, logos, and diagrams.
8. LibreOffice is a free and open-source office suite. It includes Writer (word processing), Calc (spreadsheet), Impress (presentations), Draw (drawing), Base (database), and Math (formula editor). LibreOffice is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
9. VLC Media Player is a free and open-source media player. It is available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and iOS. VLC Media Player can play a variety of video and audio files, including DVDs and Blu-rays.
10. MySQL is a free and open-source relational database management system. It is available for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Solaris. MySQL can be used to store and manage data for websites, applications, and businesses.
These are just a few of the many free software and open source applications that are available. If you are looking for a specific type of application, you can search for it online or ask for recommendations from friends or colleagues.

Like Bing, Bard to the “I want 40 things” as a suggestion…not the biggest deal. Here though it includes an outright lie!

CCleaner is a free and open-source system optimization and cleaning tool.

CCleaner is not “free and open-source”, it is proprietary software…not a good thing to have in a list like this!

I’m also not so sure that any end users would be interested in MySQL, it seems like it go away from the question off to just talking about FLOSS in general there.

Summary

These AIs are getting pretty decent, if I hadn’t spent twenty years learning about FLOSS, I could get a pretty good introduction talking to one of them. But I’m happy to have spent that time and been a part of the community for all these years. Plus, I’ve gotten to use a lot of great software!