10 open source projects worth checking out

How many open source projects are out there? Thousands upon thousands. And out of all those projects, how many are worth paying attention to? Thousands? Hundreds? If you remove the usual suspects (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, GIMP, OpenOffice, Firefox, etc.), you can really start paring down the list.

Here are 10 open source projects you might never have heard of--but really should check out.

1: OpenBravo
Are you looking for your next ERP application? If so, do not overlook OpenBravo. This tool is a small-footprint powerhouse that includes integrated accounting, sales/CRM, procurement, inventory, production, and project/service management.

OpenBravo also features single-instance to multiple tenants, organizations, localizations, and warehouses. It is every ERP tool you will need in one open source toolbox. If just want to evaluate it, you can try a virtual machine with OpenBravo.

But to download a package, you will have to walk through a questionnaire. Warning: Someone might try to sell you something!

2: OpenNMS
OpenNMS should have no problem winning you over. This tool is a serious network management platform. OpenNMS offers three main areas: service polling, data collection, and event/notification management. Its feature list is pretty impressive and includes node listing, searches, outages, path outages, events, alarms, surveillance, and distributed status.

If you need to be sold on this product, hop on over to the OpenNMS Demo page (user/password "demo") to see what this tool is all about. OpenNMS will run on Linux, Solaris, OS X, and Windows (2000, XP, 2003).

3: elgg
Elgg is an open source social networking platform that powers numerous social networking sites. As many companies move to offer in-house social networking, you would do well to invest a bit of time and effort into this open source project. The elgg social networking platform offers profiles, notifications, groups, blogs, embedded media, files, microblogging, pages, external pages, and more.

If you're looking for a means to improve you company morale but don't want users logging on to Facebook or MySpace, give this open source social networking platform a try.

4: Magento
Magento is one serious ecommerce tool. This isn't your Drupal-ecommerce-module-level ecommerce tool--this one can stand up with the big boy platforms (and knock some of them down).

Magento features marketing/promotion tools, site management, analytics and reporting, catalog management, catalog browsing, product browsing, mobile solutions, checkout, shipping, payment, and more. Magento was voted "Best New Project" on SourceForge (2008) for a reason. With community and enterprise editions, there is a solution for everyone.

NOTE: While the Community edition is free (and is missing numerous features), the Enterprise edition does have a price tag (and a steep one at that: US$8,900 per year!)

5: dotProject
DotProject is a Web-based project management tool that offers the features you'd expect--and more. The feature list includes user management, trouble-ticket system (integrated voxel.net Ticketsmith), client/company management, project listings, hierarchical task lists, file repository, contact lists, calendar, forum, and a permission system. What stands out with dotProject is its clean and simple user interface.

6: Heartbeat
Heartbeat is the heart of the Linux High Availability project. It's the piece of the HA project that performs death-of-node detection, communications, and cluster management.

Heartbeat is a daemon that provides the cluster infrastructure so that peer machines will know the status of all cluster resources. Of course, Heartbeat isn't much good without a Cluster Resource Manager (CRM). Since Hearbeat is a piece of the HA project, you can be sure there is a CRM tool ready.

Although Heartbeat ships with a minimal CRM, a new project was spun off, Pacemaker, that serves as the CRM for the Heartbeat foundation. If you are looking for an open source clustering solution, this might be the ticket.

7: Enomoly
Enomoly offers a cloud computing solution for any size environment. If you want to get to the source, however, you have to use the Community edition. This version is for SMBs and smaller enterprise use.

With this browser-based management tool, you can design, deploy, and manage virtual applications within a cloud environment. You can plan and simplify deployments and automate virtual machine scaling and load-balancing. If you are a developer, you will appreciate the fact that Enomoly includes links to both its core APIs.

8: Nuxeo
Nuxeo is an outstanding document management system that is incredibly feature rich and simple to install. Nuxeo has so many features, the best way for you to see them all is to go to the Nuxeo Feature List page.

With the Nuxeo document management system, users can work either on-or-offline (working offline requires an uploading of content). Users can simply drag and drop content from desktop to Web browser for content capture. It doesn’t get much easier. Nuxeo is also offered in a cloud computing edition, which eliminates the need for storage, hardware infrastructure, or server availability. The cloud edition of Nuxeo was built with the Amazon AWS.

9: Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus is another entry in the open source cloud computing space. There are two versions of this solution: Open Source and Enterprise. Naturally, we are looking at the Open Source edition. With the Eucalyptus cloud computing solution, you are getting more than just the means to serve up cloud apps--you can also control both the network and the storage infrastructure.

Eucalyptus works with Ubuntu, OpenSuSE, Debian, and CentOS and supports both Xen and KVM hypervisors.

10: Google Web Toolkit
Developers may want to consider adding Google Web Toolkit to their arsenal. You can use it to write a front end for an app in Java and then have GWT compile the source into a highly optimized JavaScript. And since GWT is open source, you can join the Google Webkit Community and contribute modifications for the project.

Jack Wallen was a key player in the introduction of Linux to the original TechRepublic. Beginning with Red Hat 4.2 and a mighty soap box, Jack had found his escape from Windows. It was around Red Hat 6.0 that Jack landed in the hallowed halls of TechRepublic.