Open source software initially was a head-scratcher: “How can you make money selling something for free?” But once open source advocates clarified the meaning of free – “Free as in speech, not as in beer” – the open source economy took off.

If a business is so inclined, it can get most of the software it needs for free. However, free software users need to look before they leap. "The key is looking at free and open source software that comes with solid support.

“Open Source” advocate: «...I associate much more with the "Open Source" (also as Richard defines it) camp, and am open to the existence and use of proprietary software...» --

Is your software budget pipeline filled with rust? Do your customers, vendors and friends have to save their files in a different file format so you can open them? If your software cabinet looks like it would be a better fit in a software museum, there is hope — hope in free software.

In his note, Stallman made clear the difference between Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and open source as conceived by Eric Raymond and supporters in the business community. FOSS is not just "free as in free beer". Under FOSS software is free, not just for the user. The software itself has liberties.

Richard Stallman once wrote that the point about free software is it is "free as in freedom, not free as in beer", meaning that people should be at liberty to do as they pleased with software, rather than subscribe to its restrictive licences.

"Just returning from the iCommons Summit in Sapporo, Japan. The Free Beer project made a showing, with a locally brewed version. But this ad caught my eye: "Free Beer" for "500 yen."

Here’s an interesting bit of news from the blurred line between open and closed source software. Ubuntu sponsor Canonical has announced that it is reselling IBM’s DB2 Express-C database as both a standalone software package and as a software appliance with VMware. While Express-C is free as in beer, it is not free as in speech. Of course, if you want support it is not free at all.

"Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement. For the free software movement, free software is an ethical imperative, because only free software respects the users' freedom. By contrast, the philosophy of open source considers issues in terms of how to make software “better”—in a practical sense only. It says that non-free software is a suboptimal solution.