OSS is not just limited to Linux and Windows, you know. Besides that, developing it for Mac users is a lot easier than it used to be. Heck, just look at the options one has to work with!

If you want to make use of open source software on a Macintosh running OS X, you have plenty of options. The Fink project modifies Unix/Linux open source packages to run on Mac OS X, and gives users the ability to build from source or download precompiled binaries. Many open source packages have native OS X versions — Firefox, Thunderbird, Abiword, Nvu, and the GIMP among them. But if you dig deeper, you will find quite a few Mac-only open source software gems. Here are a few of the best open source programs written specifically for Mac OS X.

ClamXav
There are few, if any, viruses in the wild that affect Mac OS X - but it’s not a bad idea to check attachments and downloads anyway, particularly if you share files with Windows users. ClamXav lets you do just that.

ClamXav is a Mac OS X front-end to ClamAV, probably the most popular anti-virus open source engine. Using ClamXav you can conveniently perform scans for viruses, configure filters, and schedule virus definition updates. The ClamXav Sentry feature allows you to set up background scanning by simply adding folders to its watch list. Once the Sentry is activated, it will quietly scan any file created in these folders.

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