PeterWe focus quite a lot on Linux stuff here at FOSSwire, which is fine, because it is a very important open source system, but it's easy to forget that there are other platforms out there, and even if the platform itself isn't open source, there are plenty of applications you can be using which are.
In this post, I'm going to run through five top open source applications for Mac OS X.
#1 - Growl
Growl is an amazing piece of software. At heart, it is an open source notification system for OS X. All sorts of different applications can plug in to the functionality it provides, and display popup notifications on your desktop. It is fully customisable, with different themes for the notifications. Support for Growl is extensive across many Mac apps - open and proprietary, with plugins available for many Apple shipping applications that don't have support too.
At the time of writing, their site is down/unreliable, so snagging the download link directly can be a pain. However, Growl is included with Adium (the next application I'm going to look at), so keep reading to get yourself a copy.
#2 - Adium
Adium is a multi-network instant messaging client which is fully extensible and customisable with plugins. It is notable for its use of libpurple, the same underlying IM code that powers Windows and Linux program Pidgin.
It supports more IM networks than you can shake a stick at and there is a lively community of people who work on plugins called Xtras. Xtras allow you to completely customise the look, feel and behaviour of your chat client. If iChat isn't giving you enough - or you're stuck using a second rate official client for an obscure network, Adium is a great choice.
Download Adium (includes Growl)
#3 - MacPorts
If you're a hardcore Unix junkie, using OS X can be frustrating as there isn't an easy way to pull down software packages automatically like there is in almost all Linux distributions and plenty of other Unixes too. It's perfectly possible to download and compile everything yourself, but this can be tiresome, especially if what you're installing has a lot of dependencies.
Enter MacPorts. MacPorts provides you with a command line package manager which you can use in a similar way to apt or yum, for example. It ships with built-in repositories for pretty much everything most people will need, but you can add third-party repositories if necessary. If you're a Unix person at heart, MacPorts can make the Mac experience that much easier.
Also check out Porticus, which is a GUI for the MacPorts command line tool.
#4 - Smultron
OK, so this one is sort of a programmer's thing, but it is such a good app in my opinion I'm going to include it. Smultron is a programmer's text editor, with full syntax highlighting and other features such as split window view, tabs, command line scripting, AppleScript, find as you type and more.
It is a formidable competitor to some of the commercial and proprietary programmer's text editors on the Mac, and for many uses it can be a vital tool in your arsenal. The latest version is Leopard only (so that it can take advantage of the latest features), but older versions can also be downloaded for Tiger.
Because it is Mac-specific, it integrates well and provides a good Mac-like experience, rather than sacrificing that for platform independence.
#5 - Camino
Firefox on the Mac is a little, well... rubbish. It integrates poorly, is slow and bloated and generally doesn't really feel like it fits in. Equally, Safari doesn't give you the compatibility and power that the open source Gecko rendering engine provides either.
Camino is a browser built on top of Mozilla's Gecko, but with a completely native shell built in Apple's Cocoa. The result is a browser that is fast, looks good, and behaves like a proper Macintosh application should, while still giving you the advantages of having Firefox's rendering code running underneath.
The only caveat (other than a curious lack of auto-updating facility) is you don't get Firefox's extensions, which can be one of the reasons for using Firefox over Safari in the first place. If you're not bothered about that, though, give Camino a try.
Wrap up
There are plenty more open source gems out there for the Mac, so if you think there's something worthy of mentioning, feel free to leave a note in the comments!
