Sourceforge Community Choice finalists: Some curious choices

Sourceforge.net has announced its 2008 Community Choice finalists, and includes a wide range of projects that I'm seeing for the first time. Sure, there are old favorites like OpenOffice and Firebird, but when was the last time you used Sphinx (SQL full-text search engine), FreeMind (mind mapper), or Habari (next-generation blogging platform)?

Some of the finalists - or, rather where they were voted - are quite silly. Under the "Most Likely to Be the Next $1B Acquisition" category, only a small fraction of the candidates are actually corporations capable of being purchased for $1 billion. (Zenoss, Magento, and Talend welcome your $1 billion. :-)

Others are a little closer to the truth. Under "Most Likely to Change the World," Linux and Ubuntu both feature, though arguably they already have. OpenOffice also features there but, come on, if it hasn't changed the world by now, why should we expect it to do so tomorrow?

(Ironically, a few of these "world changers" also find themselves under the "Most Likely to Get Users Sued" category, including Launchy and ReactOS.)

Anyway, hop on over to the site to vote for your favorite open-source software projects. Your favorite project isn't there? Neither is mine. I would have put Adium, Handbrake, and others (including, of course, Alfresco) above most of the projects voted into the final.

But that's why it's called "community voting." I'm just one vote among many.