In our earlier article, "Facts and Friction on Open Source and Free Software" we have explained where "Open Source" is coming from and what is its relation to Free Software and the Free Software Foundation that represents it.

One still occasionally hears people wonder why free and open source software developers "work for free." We aren't talking about developers that work at a company or university.

The methodologies of Open Source are not owned or guided by any one person. The closest thing we have are the Open Source Initiative (OSI) and support of the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The OSI certifies what qualifies as an open source license.

Socially responsible investing begs the question: Is it financially viable? The same question arises with regard to free, or open source, software. Free software is clearly beneficial to society, but is it good for business?

“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...» --

There have always been two schools of intellectual property thought in free software/open-source circles, and boy have they had their flame wars over the years. Things have been calm lately, but recently, Eric S. Raymond, co-founder of the OSI (Open Source Initiative), has thrown a match on the gasoline again in an essay entitled, The Economic Case Against the GPL.

Recently I've taken note of the rise in friction between those who want to create open source software for its own sake and those who want to evolve open source software into something that can be used for commerce.

"...For the Open Source movement, the issue of whether software should be open source is a practical question, not an ethical one. As one person put it, “Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement.” For the Open Source movement, non-free software is a suboptimal solution.

"...When we launched Squish Software, we had goals of “open software.” We realized that openly supporting free and open source software, while not contributing back with our own software, was sort of hypocritical. So today we’re very excited to announce that we’re beginning to phase out ‘open software,’ and phase in true free software.