Yorba Brings Free Software to the Multimedia World

Photo courtesy of visual velocity pc.

Yorba is a non-profit startup in San Francisco that is on a mission to bring quality multimedia programs to the free desktop. Founded in January 2009 by Adam Dingle, Yorba's team has created Shotwell, one of the most widely used open source photo management applications (similar to iPhoto on the Mac).

From its modest offices it the Mission, Yorba's team of half a dozen developers are not driven by the thrill of a big payout or getting rich quick -- they're fueled by the idea of bringing multumedia software to the world. All Yorba's software is 100% free and available to anyone on the free desktop.

What is the free desktop?

Beyond the Mac and Windows war lies a different type of operating system -- the free desktop. Operating systems such as Ubuntu, Fedora and Debian are built by a community of developers who provide them for free to end users like you and me. While open source operating systems have commonly been the stomping ground of uber nerds (more commonly known as "neck beards"), they have become increasingly user friendly and offer a variety of applications akin to what you might find on your Mac or Windows computer. Best of all, they are entirely free to run, copy and distribute to friends.

Anyone with some spare time and a passion for programming can write applications for open source and release it to the community. Quality can vary drastically among applications, and not all of the same user friendliness to their Mac/PC counterparts.

Adam started Yorba out of the frustration of not being able to find good audio recoding software for the free desktop when he wanted to record his guitar riffs. From that moment, the idea was born to create Yorba and build a variety of multimedia software that could be easily used, freely distributed and of excellent quality.

Adam is passionate about Yorba's mission and future. He says, "We want to see a world where artists working with photos, audio and video can use a free desktop for their work, where they have excellent free software for working with these media types and where they themselves can participate in the development and evolution of that software. We think that San Francisco is a great place for this to happen because it has a strong culture of art, technology, freedom and generosity, all of which are related to our goals".

Sounds crazy, right? Build a company to give software away! Well perhaps it is, but through private donation Yorba has continued on its mission. Thanks to Yorba's work, millions of people around the world have been able to access high quality multimedia software for free. For many that are unable to afford commercial software, Yorba (and the free desktop) provide opportunities otherwise out of reach.

Today the company has four applications available for users of the free desktop. Its photo manager, Shotwell, comes installed with Ubuntu. Fillmore, a multitrack recorder, and Lombard, a video editor, round out the multimedia applications.

Yorba is hiring. If your interested in working for Yorba or contributing code to their software, you can! To learn much more and to try out its software, visit Yorba.org.