Freshmeat (www.freshmeat.net) is a website that allows computer users to keep track of the latest software releases and updates as well as write/read reviews and articles, send or receive comments to or from the author, and many other features. Although a majority of the software covered is open source for Unix environment, Freshmeat covers releases for software on a variety of operating systems including Microsoft Windows as well as closed-source or commercial software.

Programmers register their projects and inform the site about updates; users browse for software and download and (sometimes) rate or comment on the software. Software is categorized by field of application, license, development status, environment, intended audience, type of use, supported operating systems, and used programming and available natural languages. There is an NNTP server for usenet-like access and complex search queries can be saved, and new or updated entries that match the query can be sent as daily e-mail notifications.

Furthermore, Freshmeat offers a news ticker stream, articles on Unix software-related topics and an IRC channel.

Freshmeat's entire database of software releases is freely available as a download, for such purposes as having a local database copy.

External links

• http://www.freshmeat.net Project homepage