Lets get a forum going about what software is out there on the open source market. I primarily wanted to know if anyone was aware of something open source that could compete on some level with Adobe dreamweaver 8 +. Here is my list, on the top is the payable / commercial software and on the bottom the open source option

(1a) Photoshop CS++
(1b) The Gimp ( not even in the same league but you can do some good stuff with it )

(2a) Microsoft Office
(2b) OpenOffice ( writer is ok, calc is not good enough )
(2c) Abi word ( I would have Openoffice instead )

(3) Camtasia / captivate
(3b) Wink ( wink is not as good by a long way but for simple screen capture and basic interactivity it will do

(4a) Window
(4b) Linux

(5) Internet Explorer
(5b) Firefox

Ill add more in future posts but Ive run out of time.

From the list you have provided I'd go for:

(1a) Photoshop - Gimp is ok just not quite as advanced as photoshop, also if you compare illustrator with inkscape just not good enough but you can still do some awesome stuff with it.

(2b) Openoffice - For some simple writing for instance in school it's enough, dunno why should I pay for Microsoft's office, when Openoffice can do the job just as good, but I would agree on you with calc.

(3) None - Never tried Camtasia or Wink, I'll give it a go and I'll re-post.

(4b) Linux - For a normal use of a computer like surfing,msn-ing,reading the mail, I think Linux is a better option, but It lacks some of the great apps like Photoshop, sure you get alternatives but it's not the real deal, you can also install vmware and run windows on it, but it's slow and a little buggy.

(5b) Firefox - The only time I've used IE was some time ago when the 5 version was out, It was so bad that most of the pages didn't show correctly and if you were designing a website you got the same results on the other browsers except IE, so after that I switched to Firefox, I've heard that IE is a lot better now, but I'm happy with Firefox. But I would like to give it a go if someone could supply me with a link for the OSX version.

Pfft, it still isn't up to scratch. They still display pages bad. IE doesn't align tables widths and such to the pixel like FF, which is a pain in web developing.

Hehe looks like I don't have to try it out afterall It's just a couple of people that I know said it's a lot better now guess they were wrong. Thanks for the info Ben

For Dreamweaver try PSPad, Notepad++ or PHP Designer

Oh how much I disagree with that. I have used Linux many many years on a second system when I was on PC and I got just about EVERY program I installed on Linux running and that includes any MS app you care to name.
I was playing the very first underground on linux and it ran faster than it did on windows.
All you need is wine and some clever knowhow and the rest is simple.

Well, it is a lot better, but Firefox is still in a league of it's own

Ok, I've got one:

a ) Vista
b ) Vista Inspirat 2 Theme by BricoPacks (for XP)

Personally, the theme is better. A shit load faster than Vista, but it contains all the good looks Vista has (though it's slightly different, it's probably better).