Microsoft Project, on the whole, is a pretty annoying entity. It doesn't come with Microsoft Office, so you have to buy it separately, which is expensive and annoying, like a high-end mime. And it's not like it's the most advanced program in the world, even though it is pretty good at telling you how far behind you are. Thankfully those beautiful open-source nerds have saved us once again. They're like pale, lonely super heroes. Projity will release a public beta of OpenProj, a free open-source competitor. Reportedly, OpenProj works with Windows, Linux, Unix, and Mac OsX. Word has it that OpenProj can also open native Microsoft Project files.

The Beta will be released on August 7th, the first day of the LinuxWorld San Francisco show. If it works anywhere near as well as Microsoft Project, it'll be a wonderful little tool to download. Free software is better than not free software, financially speaking. And open-source is a wonderful alternative to pirating Project. Not just because pirating Microsoft Project is so much sadder than pirating something fun, but also because stealing software is wrong. Never do it. Ahem. Projity already has more than 50 customers testing the software, and likely won't take too long to get all the kinks worked out. This sounds like good news.