Linux Software Reviews

LibreOffice is the world's leading free and open-source office suite. Canada's open-source community has long championed LibreOffice adoption, and Canadian contributors actively participate in development, translation into French, and accessibility improvements.

Open-source multimedia project maintained in a public source repository. Game engine which can be used to develop 2D and 3D games.

Maple Linux is a Canadian maintained, Debian based distro. It ships with Cinnamon DE for an easy transition for Windows users, and includes additional security and privacy enhancements out of box. Learn more at maplelinux.ca

Mattermost is an open-source, self-hostable online chat service with file sharing, search, and integrations. Designed as an alternative to Slack, it was founded by a Canadian-led team and is widely used by enterprises and governments for secure communications.

Koha is the world's first free and open-source integrated library system. Canadian public and academic libraries have been among its largest adopters and contributors, with Canadian companies providing support and development.

Lagoon is an open-source application delivery platform built for Kubernetes and Docker. It automates DevOps workflows, enabling teams to define their entire infrastructure as code. Developed by amazee.io with strong Canadian roots.

ProcessMaker is an open-source business process management and workflow automation platform. Originally developed with strong Canadian involvement in Montreal, it helps organizations automate approval processes, forms, and document workflows.

Canadian research networks including CANARIE and provincial NREN members such as ORION and BCNET are major contributors to open-source network authentication and AAI infrastructure. Their contributions to FreeRADIUS and eduroam infrastructure enable secure network access for millions of students and researchers.

CANARIE manages the Canadian Access Federation (CAF), which provides open-source Shibboleth identity federation infrastructure enabling single sign-on for over 300 Canadian universities, colleges, and research institutions. Their open tools and configuration guides are publicly available.

OpenMRS is an open-source medical record system used in developing countries. The University of Toronto and affiliated Canadian researchers are among the primary contributors to its core platform and modules, helping deliver healthcare technology globally.

The Digital Research Alliance of Canada (formerly Compute Canada) manages national HPC clusters running customized Slurm workload manager configurations and contributes open-source tooling for scientific computing. Their open-source stack powers university research across the country.

OpenHMD is a free and open-source API and drivers for immersive technology such as head-mounted displays (VR/AR). Canadian developers have been central contributors, and the project supports a wide range of VR headsets on Linux.

Vanilla Forums is an open-source community forum software designed for ease of use and extensibility. Founded in Montreal, it powers thousands of community platforms worldwide, with a strong plugin ecosystem and modern design.

Open edX is the open-source platform powering edX and hundreds of university MOOC programs. Canadian institutions including University of Toronto, UBC, and McGill have contributed significantly to its development and deploy it for online learning.

The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) publishes numerous open-source tools and datasets for materials science, climate modelling, construction standards, and aerospace research. Their open-data and open-software initiatives are publicly available via the Government of Canada's open resource portal.

Statistics Canada releases open-source tools and R/Python packages for statistical analysis and data dissemination. Their tools include the Canadian Statistical Dissemination Architecture (CSDA), open microdata tools, and visualization packages used by researchers across Canada.

Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication and publishing. Ian Clarke, whose work has strong Canadian roots, created the project. Canadian privacy advocates and technical contributors have been essential to the project's ongoing development and adoption.

CanAssist at the University of Victoria develops open-source assistive technology tools and custom software for people with disabilities. Their free toolbox includes communication aids, alternative input interfaces, and educational software freely available to Canadians.

Aegir is an open-source hosting system for Drupal websites, created and maintained largely by Montreal-based developers. It enables sysadmins to provision, migrate, and manage large numbers of Drupal sites from a single control panel.

SageMath is a free open-source mathematics software system. The Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS), a consortium of Canadian universities, provides infrastructure and hosting for SageMath and has been a key institutional backer of open mathematical software in Canada.

OSGeo Canada (OSGeo Local Chapter) actively promotes and contributes to GeoServer and the broader open geospatial software stack. Natural Resources Canada and provincial governments use and contribute to GeoServer for publishing geospatial data through standard OGC web services.

QGIS is the leading free and open-source desktop GIS application. Canadian government agencies, universities, and environmental organizations are among the world's largest QGIS user communities. Natural Resources Canada, Parks Canada, and multiple provincial mapping agencies have contributed data, plugins, and development.

Axiom is a free, open-source computer algebra system with a long history. Canadian mathematicians supported through NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council) have contributed significantly to its formal mathematics libraries and documentation.

Pidgin is a free and open-source multi-protocol instant messaging client. Canadian open-source developers have long been contributors to Pidgin and its underlying libpurple library, which supports dozens of chat protocols.

OpenStax provides free, peer-reviewed open-source textbooks. Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) and several other Canadian institutions are active contributors to the platform's open educational resources and have helped adapt content for Canadian curricula.

Developed by the National Research Council of Canada, the NRC Word-Emotion Association Lexicon (EmoLex) is a widely-cited open linguistic resource mapping words to emotions and sentiments. It is freely available for research and has been used in thousands of NLP studies worldwide.

OSCAR EMR (Open Source Clinical Application Resource) is a Canadian-developed open-source electronic medical records system used by thousands of primary care physicians across Canada. Developed at McMaster University, it supports bilingual interfaces and Canadian-specific clinical workflows including OHIP billing.

Accessible, multilingual front-end framework used across Government of Canada websites.

Web components for the Government of Canada Design System.

API backend for GC Notify, a notification platform for government services.

Administration interface for GC Notify notification services.

Public-facing Next.js application for GC Forms.

rc-servers reimplements all Robocraft servers to make the defunct game playable again. The project is fully self-hostable and does not require any game client modifications. After the shutdown of FreeJam, the British game studio behind Robocraft, and inspired by the Stop Killing Games movement, the OpenJam project was founded in Ottawa to keep their games running.

API service for the Government of Canada Forms platform.

Publishing product for Government of Canada articles.

Status page for Canadian Digital Service products.

TypeScript module for removing personally identifiable information from text.

Encrypted Message Crypté is a small application that allows you to share passwords, secret messages, or private links securely with another person. It does this by hiding your message behind a unique URL that can only be viewed once. Messages automatically expire after a predefined time limit if they are not viewed.

A modern and accessible web application that allows users to link legacy pai to their GC Sign in account. Built with a React front-end using the GC Design System, and a supporting FastAPI back-end API that integrates with the IBM Verify SaaS (IdP) to handle login, logout and profile updates.

Self-service application for managing CanadaLogin profiles.

Infrastructure as code for the GC Forms environment.

Catalog platform for open-source solutions from Canadian public administrations.

CKAN extension supporting the Government of Canada open data catalogue.

This CKAN extension provides a way to configure and share metadata schemas using a YAML or JSON schema description. Custom validation and template snippets for editing and display are supported.

The Terraform and configuration used to run the Platform business unit's Zitadel identity provider. The login user portal code is managed in the cds-snc/platform-unified-accounts-user-portal repository

GitHub Action to create a comment in a Pull Request listing whether the specified workflows in the repository successfully completed or failed. If the specified workflows have failed, the comment will include a list of the failed workflows and the jobs that failed in each workflow, with links to the failed job logs.

Command-line interface and Python module for the CKAN Action API.

This extension provides a way to store and return multilingual fields in CKAN datasets, resources, organizations and groups.

Interactive data-visualization tool for Government of Canada information.

The AIA is a questionnaire designed to help you assess and mitigate the impacts associated with deploying an automated decision system. The AIA helps identify the impact level of your automation project under the Directive on Automated Decision-Making. Completion and release of an AIA is required by the Directive.

Drupal distribution built around WET-BOEW for accessible multilingual government websites.

Web components and packages for building Ontario government digital services.

Ready-to-use integration kit for Ontario Design System applications.

Open Data is structured data (data with a pattern that makes it easy to search and use) that is machine-readable, freely shared, used and built on without restrictions.

The B.C. Design System gives design and software development teams the building blocks to deliver intuitive, accessible digital services.

This project was designed to integrate with Statistic Canada’s The Zone platform. In The Zone, users can create individual workspaces with Kubeflow Notebooks. To persist their work, users can attach volumes to their notebooks. These volumes are not automatically deleted when a notebook is deleted. Users are free to move them or to reuse them. As a result, over time, users tend to amass several unused volumes. These volumes sit on the cloud and result in unnecessary costs. The purpose of this project is to design an automatic system that detects these unused volumes and safely removes them, reducing unnecessary expenditure. Despite being primarily designed for Statistics Canada, this project strongly values open-source practices. The codebase is available for public use and the entire development process is documented on the issues page. The volume cleaner was designed to have as little coupling as possible so it can easily integrate into projects outside Statistics Canada. Using open-source and being open-source was an important development philosophy.

This Directive outlines requirements for ministries and provincial agencies on listing all data inventories, publishing open data, and preparing information systems to support ongoing open data requirements. The open data initiative supports government efficiency, effectiveness and innovation. Faster and easier access to government data through a one-window data portal facilitates evidence-based policy, informs service delivery and promotes greater transparency and accountability. The open data initiative also supports public engagement and participation by allowing Ontarians to develop their own analysis, insights, and digital products. To support this implementation of the directive, an Open Data Guidebook is available as a tool and resource to Ontario ministries and provincial agencies. The Open Data Directive is a Management Board of Cabinet Directive, issued under the Management Board of Cabinet Act.

Database schema documentation tooling used in B.C. government projects.

Shared form service for hosted public-sector forms.

Common single sign-on service components for B.C. government.