Welcome to Free And Open Source Tools - PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING

A forum to post information about tools which are free and open source.
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Alan Kirk
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Welcome to Free And Open Source Tools - PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING

Post by Alan Kirk »

What's the purpose of this forum?
It's for announcements and general discussion of software tools which are (a) Free (as in, TOTALLY free) and (b) Open Source. Examples include Bedrock, TM1Tools, TM1Py, the language definition for Notepad++, Monaco TI Editor, etc. It is NOT for tools which use a "freemium" model; those are still commercial.

Why do we need a new forum?
Two reasons. First, the tools can get lost after a time, buried as they are in the Commercial sub-forum (if released by a consultant company), the Useful Code sub-forum, and even the general forum. Having a new forum will keep them more prominent which will be of particular use to new members who may not even know that they exist.

Second, there has always been a policy of having posts by commercial entities separated out into the Commercial forum. While it's true that tools released by such entities may be free, they have promotional value. HOWEVER, if a tool is free, it's free, and there's no point policing such a distinction if we can have one forum for ALL free tools.

What Type Of Posts Should Be Here?
New releases of the tools, bug reports, suggestions for improvements, etc; anything that would be of interest to the general user base of the tools would sit well here. On the other hand "how do I...?" type posts would be better in the main forum, not least because there may in fact be other or better ways to solve the problem than using the tool in question. A question like "How do I use this tool with my specific hierarchy structure" isn't likely to be of benefit to most users and would clutter up this forum, so it would be better to shift that one over to the general forum.

Why Is This Forum (Mostly) Empty?
Because it's going to take me a while to find all of the relevant posts and shuffle their little heinies over to this forum. As and when I have a moment, you'll start to see new threads appear here.
"To them, equipment failure is terrifying. To me, it’s 'Tuesday.' "
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