Free and Open Source software recommendations

I'm a member of some Free and Open Source gaming forums. I typically never like the types of games the forum members work on or like. They typically don't like the types of games I prefer either. Was thinking how violent most of the games were yesterday and realized most FLOSS game forums are not that HSP friendly. Anyone have suggestions for Free/Open Source games or software in general or Creative Commons multimedia they like? Thought it might be nice to have a thread to share recommendations.

My only idea is to revive some old long retired violence free games or do versions of them, ones that were popular early on, like the 80's or even the 70's!

How do people secure open sourced games from getting hacked to insert malicious software and links?

melodiccolor wrote:My only idea is to revive some old long retired violence free games or do versions of them, ones that were popular early on, like the 80's or even the 70's!

How do people secure open sourced games from getting hacked to insert malicious software and links?  

There are some FLOSS games that concentrate more on logic or recreating popular board or card games and don't involve any violence. I also like educational and children's games. As I mentioned, the games I like are typically not the ones most other FLOSS game developers like. I have a few lists, one for educational games and another with some of my favorites.

I think you have the same problems with hacking in Open Source games as you do with commercial products. The nice thing about Open Source for me is that the source code is available so one can read it and look for anything suspicious in the code and it can be modified and customized. I build most of the Open Source programs I use from source code myself. There are places you can download FLOSS that a lot of people use, so they're typically checked for any issues like malware. For Android phones, there's F-Droid. For Windows applications, I like the portableapps site, but there are others. Linux users typically just download from their distribution's repository.

lm8 wrote:

melodiccolor wrote:My only idea is to revive some old long retired violence free games or do versions of them, ones that were popular early on, like the 80's or even the 70's!

How do people secure open sourced games from getting hacked to insert malicious software and links?  

There are some FLOSS games that concentrate more on logic or recreating popular board or card games and don't involve any violence.  I also like educational and children's games.  As I mentioned, the games I like are typically not the ones most other FLOSS game developers like.  I have a few lists, one for educational games and another with some of my favorites.  

I think you have the same problems with hacking in Open Source games as you do with commercial products.  The nice thing about Open Source for me is that the source code is available so one can read it and look for anything suspicious in the code and it can be modified and customized.  I build most of the Open Source programs I use from source code myself.  There are places you can download FLOSS that a lot of people use, so they're typically checked for any issues like malware.  For Android phones, there's F-Droid.  For Windows applications, I like the portableapps site, but there are others.  Linux users typically just download from their distribution's repository.

I am a noob at all of this; but if you have links to sites that do screen and have a good selection of nonviolent games that are not flash based, I'd love to take a look. Also places to find safe apps for iphones and ipads.

I am not a programmer and many who play games are not so for us checking the code personally is not a practical solution. Many who would love such games too are seniors; think of all those folk in nursing homes who still have to limit contact with others.

melodiccolor wrote:
I am a noob at all of this;  but if you have links to sites that do screen and have a good selection of nonviolent games that are not flash based, I'd love to take a look.  Also places to find safe apps for iphones and ipads.

I am not a programmer and many who play games are not so for us checking the code personally is not a practical solution.  Many who would love such games too are seniors;  think of all those folk in nursing homes who still have to limit contact with others.

I'd be happy to share my favorites. I don't think I can post links for 7 days, but will try to post some links after that. For Android phone apps, do a search for F-Droid. There's a wide variety of apps there, but they're all Free and Open Source. Apple's IPhones are a very closed environment, so not a lot of FLOSS options there.

Even if someone can't read the source code for Open Source applications, there are always other Free and Open Source advocates who can and who can recommend what might be a fairly secure program. Most Free Software advocates are very concerned with issues of privacy and security. Many won't even use IPhones or Android phones because of security issues and are working on safer alternatives.

Always thought it would be fun to recommend some FLOSS programs for seniors, but most of the senior centers or nursing homes I've talked to weren't the least bit interested. There are some interesting programs like Dual N-Back which is based on a psychologist's research and is supposed to help with memory.

Since you noted Apple devices, I should mention there's a package manager called Homebrew that helps automate installation of Free and Open Source programs on Apple devices. It's for macOS, so I don't know if it'll work with an Ipad or not. I doubt it will work for a phone. As I mentioned the IPhones are pretty closed environments. They typically don't encourage using your own programs on them.

Thank you. I'll keep all that in mind. I primarily use my old pc, but traveling I would be relying on my ipad and iphone and I am fairly new to both so still learning the ins and outs of them.

Nursing homes in themselves and assisted living care residences are not interested; but if they do provide wifi, those who live there would most certainly be. They typically use their own devices. However most are completely tech illiterate and need simplicity.

That's right, I keep forgetting about the 7 day wait; I've undone that requirement several times and the host keeps putting it back with each update it does. But a week goes by fast. I'm looking forward to the links you can share once it opens up for you.

melodiccolor wrote:I primarily use my old pc, but traveling I would be relying on my ipad and iphone and I am fairly new to both so still learning the ins and outs of them.

Nursing homes in themselves and assisted living care residences are not interested;  but if they do provide wifi, those who live there would most certainly be.  They typically use their own devices.  However most are completely tech illiterate and need simplicity.

I find older PCs great for running Open Source software because there aren't a lot of people making new software for older machines or older operating systems. I prefer lightweight, low resource programs, so they typically run well on older computers.

There's a libreprojects.net site that lists Open Source projects that are web based. They list some interesting free services. Also if you go to Sourceforge and look for a project called LGames, it has some of my favorite online games. There are browser versions of Mastermind and Memory. All of those should work fairly well if you have access to a browser and can't install software on your machine.

Thanks; I'll check those out. I'd prefer browser based anyway.

Going to see if posting links works yet. Here's a link to my page of Free Software in honor of Software Freedom Day: http://www.distasis.com/cpp/pbtc.htm If anyone's interested in FLOSS, hope some of you will participate in SFD 2021. Most of the events are going to be online. You can check the Software Freedom Day wiki for more details.

Looks like link posting works now. Here's a link to my list of Free and Open Source Educational Games: https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/15912.html Most are for computers but some of them are for Android or are web based. I have lists of other types of Free, Libre and Open Source Software in other journal entries. If anyone has other FLOSS programs they want to recommend that I might have missed, but be very interested to hear about them.

Thank you!