If you are interested in just what open sources projects are capable of, then this is a web site you will want to visit.

OpenSourceCMS has installations of about 50 different open source server side applications which facilitate creativity and/or community for users.

 The projects of perhaps most immediate use for us AFLC members are Moodle, Claroline and Spaghetti eLearning - all applications for elearning delivery. These tools are free alternaives to proprietary solutions such as WebCT and Blackboard. You can see each system in action and play at being its administrator. Their functionality can be tested at this site, though you can't just add water and get an instant class of learners. However if  a system looks interesting, you can go to its web site and see anaother demo with users enrolled.

But there are so many other programs here that it is fascinating to see what is on offer for free.

Content management systems allow groups to share news, reviews polls, discussions forums, image galleries, chat rooms, postcards, IMs, wikis, whiteboards, RSS feeds - you name it. They provide tools so that people who have a bit of tech nous and access to suitable server space can adminsiter the system for their community and users can participate without sophisticated HTML/FTP skills.Open sourceCMS allows you test over 20 such systems with administrator access. You can play with the system and see what it can do. Some features are disabled and this can be a bit disconcerting but you can try things and not worry about screwing up. The underlying plumbing is automatically repaired and reset every hour.

As well as e-learning sytems and CMS, you can test multi-users blogs and images galleries, forums, link farms and a few other miscellaneous applications.

This page is free to access and has user generated reviews plus real life stories of installs and usage. A great place to test out just how useful, comfortable and stable these applications are. All listed applications are based on PHP and MySQL both free themselves, and can be installed for a modest fee (about AUD35) if needed.

Highly recommended. ePower to the OpenSource movement.