The ten best open source products of 2011, as named by CRN.com are these, in reverse order:

• Fedora 16, which supports LibreOffice and Condor Cloud, lets users write a cloud solution once and have it run on multiple platforms

• Ubuntu 11.04, features the Unity interface, a streamlined, unique, graphical application launcher that is sleek, elegant and useful. Though not as strong with mobile device support, Ubuntu 11.04’s UI and desktop cloud integration (with Ubuntu One), are friendlier and easier than either Windows 7 or Mac OS X.

• OpenStack, an open source cloud platform that is beginning to change the on-demand computing ecosystem in a meaningful way.

• Asterisk 10, a VoIP platform that supports conferencing via a function called “confbridge.” Between now and year’s end, Asterisk 10 may be one of the biggest IT developments of the year, CRN.com proclaims.

• MySQL 5.6, Beta, includes significant advances in text-based search inside a database, as well as performance enhancements: the strongest open-source database for mobile devices

• Android 3.xx, or "Honeycomb," brought the open-source mobile operating system to the tablet form-factor competitively

• Firefox for Android, a strong, full-featured browser that is significant for the Android platform, CRN.com says

• Linux Mint 12, now with significant UI improvements including a graphical bottom launcher panel. It also defaults its search engine to Duck Duck Go

• Ubuntu 11.10, allows users to download or purchase applications; also defaults to LibreOffice as its default productivity suite

• LibreOffice, features greatly improved ease of use and functionality for its Impress and Calc applications and support for a full range of file formats, including ODF, .doc, RTF, HTML, XML, .ppt, and .xls

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