I work at a university, and one of our faculty members often repeats to me, "Software needs to be like a rock; it needs to be that easy to use." And, she's right. Because if software is too hard to use, no one will want to use it.

Open-source software developers have created an array of amazing programs that provide a great working environment with rich functionality. At work and at home, I routinely run Linux on my desktop, using Firefox and LibreOffice for most of my daily tasks. I prefer to run open-source software tools, and I think most Linux Journal readers do too.