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Although OSS has recently become a hot topic in the press, it has
actually been in existence since the 1960s and has shown a successful
track record to-date. The open source movement gained momentum in big
business in 1998, when IBM, Corel, Oracle, and Informix endorsed open
source software. Examples of popular open source products include
Emacs, GNU toolset, Apache, Sendmail, GIMP, Samba and Linux. While
Linux and Apache are among the most well known open source-based
applications, there are many others, including BSD, Debian, and other
applications based on the GNU license.

1. GNU Software:
Emacs was one of the first open source products whose success of Emacs
led to the GNU program. It is a text editor that is widely used for
software development. The GNU project consists of an operating system
kernel and associated UNIX tools. The GNU tools have been ported to a
wide variety of platforms, including Windows NT and are widely used by
software developers to produce both open source and proprietary
software.

2. Apache Web Server:
The Apache web server is a freely available web server distributed
under an open source license. Apache web servers are known for their
functionality and reliability. They form the backbone infrastructure
running the Internet. Today the Apache web server is arguably the most
widely used web server in the world garnering almost 50 percent of the
web server market. Apache was built and is maintained by a group of 20
core developers and 10 major contributors from around the world. A
large pool of developers regularly suggests and implements minor
adjustments and bug fixes to the core group.

3. Sendmail:
Send mail is a platform for moving mail from one machine to another.
The Sendmail Consortium, a nonprofit organization, runs the open
source program and maintains a website to serve as a resource.
Sendmail is estimated to carry nearly 90 percent of e-mail traffic.

4. PERL:
While Emacs, GNU toolset, Apache, Sendmail, and Linux are examples of
open source products, the Practical Extraction and Reporting Language
(Perl) is an example of an open source process. Perl is a system
administration and computer-programming language widely used
throughout the Internet. It is the standard scripting language for all
Apache web servers, and is commonly used on UNIX. There are an
estimated one million Perl users today.

5. Netscape:
On January 22, 1998, Netscape announced that it would make the source
code to its flagship client software, Netscape Communicator, freely
available for modification and redistribution on the Internet.
Netscape's pioneering decision to distribute software via the Internet
has become an integral strategy for every software company worldwide.