- Apache OpenOffice is a free office-suite alternative to Microsoft Office or Apple's iWork Suite. With open-source development, features constantly change and improve, which makes OpenOffice in.
- Offer Details. Get free use of a Mac mini for your open source project Includes a base Mac mini i5 hosted from one of our available data centers (view all of our Mac mini options) The base Mac mini doesn’t meet your needs? Open source developers can apply an equivalent discount to an upgraded mini or any of our hosted Mac products.
Open source software is at the heart of Apple platforms and developer tools, and Apple continues to contribute and release significant quantities of open source code.
Open Source Mac is a simple list of the best free and open source software for Mac OS X. We aren't trying to be a comprehensive listing of every open-source mac app, instead we want to showcase the best, most important, and easiest to use.
Swift
Apple Mac Open Source Software Free
Swift is a powerful and intuitive programming language designed to give developers the freedom and capabilities they need to create a new generation of cutting-edge apps. Swift is easy to learn and use and it’s open source, so anyone with an idea can create something incredible.
Visit Swift.orgWebKit
WebKit — the open source rendering engine introduced by Apple — powers Safari on macOS and iOS. WebKit features blazing performance and extensive standards support. And because it’s open source, developers can examine WebKit code and contribute to the community.
Visit WebKit.orgWindows
ResearchKit
ResearchKit is an open source framework that enables an iOS app to become a powerful tool for medical research. It includes a variety of customizable modules that you can build upon and share with the community.
View the ResearchKit Open Source ProjectApple Open Source
CareKit
CareKit is an open source framework for developing apps that help people better understand and manage their health by creating dynamic care plans, tracking symptoms, connecting to care teams, and more.
Visit CareKit.orgBonjour
Bonjour enables automatic discovery of devices and services on a local network using industry standard IP protocols. It makes it easy to discover, publish, and resolve network services with a sophisticated, yet easy-to-use, programming interface.
Learn more about BonjourUNIX
macOS combines a proven UNIX foundation with the easy-to-use Mac interface to bring industrial-strength computing to the desktop.
View Unix DocumentationCommand Line Tools
Download command line developer tools, including Apple LLVM compiler, linker, and Make.
Open Source Projects
View iOS, macOS, and developer tool open source projects.
Documentation
View open source related documentation.
Before my shift to using macOS as my daily work operating system, I was using a myriad of GNU/Linux platforms. Linux (as well as FreeBSD and OpenBSD, upon which macOS is built) provided me with easy access to the various open source software via a package manager.
What is a package manager
A package manager is a command line tool that gives me access to a myriad of pre-built (or sometimes to source code if desired) software packages to install and download on my computer. I could open a terminal and simply type in a command to tell the package manager to download and install any freely available open source software my heart (and requirements) desired.
Homebrew will 'install the stuff you need that Apple didn't.'
Although macOS has the App Store, it's not a repository of my favorite open source software (at least not in their raw unadulterated forms). Things like mplayer, wget, and gcc aren't in the App Store and searching for or building the source code for a package can become onerous.
This is where Homebrew for macOS saves the day!
What is Homebrew
Homebrew touts itself as 'the missing package manager for macOS' and that it will 'install the stuff you need that Apple didn't.' Once installed on your Mac, you'll have access to hundreds of open source packages ready for you at your fingertips. Need to download a youtube video? Open a command prompt and type 'brew install youtube-dl'. Need to cross-compile for another platform? Type in 'brew install gcc'. Want to play Windows PC based games on macOS? Type in 'brew install wine'. It's that easy.
Installing Homebrew
Installing Homebrew also couldn't be easier.
- Start terminal.
- At the command line type in:
- /usr/bin/ruby -e '$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)'
- Hit Return.
- Hit Return again to allow the install to start.
- Enter your Password.
Hit Return.
Wait for the download to start and for the installer to finish. That's it!
Installing software packages
Once you've got Homebrew installed, you can now download any open source software you like, called formulae, that is maintained by the package manager developers. There are hundreds of apps to choose from. For example, let's say I wanted to install a lightweight torrent client like Transmission. Here's how to do it.
- Open terminal.
- At the command line type in:
- brew install transmission
- Tap Return.
Done!
That's it! Super fast and easy.
Final comments
With the amazing graphical interface Apple made on top of its BSD underpinnings, it's easy to forget the power that the UNIX command line can provide. It's flexible and fast with an incredible amount of free software that can turn any user into a power user. Do you think the App Store should rollout open source software packages into its scope? Is having third-party package managers such as Homebrew the better option? Lets us know your thoughts in the comments!
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