To many, Thanksgiving is a time of sharing things with those close to you. In a strange way, open source software works on the same principle — sharing your work with others in the spirit of giving. So in the spirit of the day, we here at the Free Line proudly offer up five open alternatives to a variety of popular programs.

• Kexi - Alternative to Microsoft Access.  This program is designed to match Access feature for feature. Usually a part of the KOffice productivity suite, Kexi has been made available to Windows users thanks to the Polish edition of OpenOffice.
• Inkscape - Alternative to Adobe Illustrator. Inkscape allows you to work with vector graphics (almost) like a pro. While Inkscape does have a variety tools and options at its disposal, many hardcore graphic artists say that it is a poor substitute to both Illustrator and CorelDRAW.
• Amaya - Alternative to Dreamweaver. An interesting web development suite that supports many modern formats, including XML. Amaya is the official web suite of the World Wide Web Consortium.
• GNU Privacy Guard - Alternative to Pretty Good Privacy. Easily one of the most powerful privacy and cryptography programs available today. Unlike PGP, the root GnuGP program is command-line only. There are, however, several “front ends” available for graphical use, including Firefox and Firebird.
• MythTV - Alternative to Windows Media Center and Beyond TV. No “open source” list would be complete with mentioning the infamous television program for Linux. MythTV is easily the most powerful and diverse “desktop Tivo” out there, but power comes with a price. According to … well… everyone, it takes the patience of Job and the programming skill of Linus Torvalds to set up properly. Do that, they say, and you’ll have the world of broadcast TV in the palm of your hand.