Free and Open Source Software

posted by Rianne Schestowitz on Sep 21, 2026

• BandOpticon Geo - visualise worldwide ham radio activity

  Rather than examining one band at a time, it presents a carousel of map tiles so operators can compare the extent and intensity of activity across the spectrum at a glance. A larger band-detail map can then be opened for closer inspection. The application runs client-side in JavaScript, so it can be used directly in a web browser without installing a desktop program. Its focus is on understanding propagation, comparing station performance and spotting reciprocal paths that are more likely to support a QSO.

  This is free and open source software.

• Coot - macromolecular model-building and crystallography toolkit

  A major strength of Coot is the breadth of its model-building workflow. The application provides tools for selecting and editing regions of a structure, fitting models to density, working with ligands and checking the quality of a model. These facilities are useful during the iterative process of examining a structure, making corrections and validating the result.

  Coot is used for macromolecular crystallography and also supports workflows involving cryo-EM density maps. The software is available as a standalone application and is also used alongside wider crystallographic software environments. Its focus remains hands-on model building, refinement and validation of biological macromolecules.

  This is free and open source software.

• Scrobblet - lightweight self-hosted music scrobbler

  The software is designed around service APIs rather than a desktop media player plugin. This means music can be played on a phone, computer, smart speaker or another Spotify-connected device while Scrobblet runs separately on a server or other always-on system. Its architecture is intended to make additional sources and targets straightforward to add.

  This is free and open source software.

• ZSvirt - virtualization platform for managing KVM-based infrastructure

  ZSvirt uses KVM as its underlying virtualization technology and adds the surrounding management and orchestration layer. It also provides REST APIs, command-line tools, Terraform integration and software development kits for automation. VMware migration tooling is available for moving existing workloads into a ZSvirt environment.

  Its architecture is modular and plugin-based, with asynchronous processing, workflows and stateless services forming part of the management layer. The software is aimed at server, datacentre and private cloud deployments rather than desktop virtualization.

  This is free and open source software.

• Mimic - manage default applications and file associations

  The application offers two main views. You can browse installed applications to see the file types associated with each program, or approach the task from the opposite direction by browsing MIME types and selecting which application should handle them. Mimic uses GTK4 and Libadwaita for its interface.

  This is free and open source software.

• Pharos – static binary analysis framework

  Pharos is a static binary analysis framework. It is intended primarily for automated analysis of compiled programs and research into binary-analysis techniques.

  The framework builds on the ROSE compiler infrastructure for disassembly, instruction semantics and control-flow analysis. Pharos then provides a collection of specialised tools for examining API behaviour, recovering object-oriented constructs, comparing functions and generating signatures. It is therefore more of an analysis toolkit than an interactive graphical reverse-engineering environment.

  This is free and open source software.