One person's trash is another's treasure, and this weekend open source vendors and community members plan to join forces with a Northern Californian recycling organization to transform hundreds of desktop and laptops into PCs loaded with Ubuntu, Firefox, OpenOffice and more to be donated to needy area schools.

Advocates for open-source software are urging governments to embrace the concept, which they argue will save money, offer more flexibility and create better computer programs by encouraging collaboration.

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.

Free software advocates are praising a federal appeals ruling that allows greater protection for open-source software against copyright infringement.

To be honest, for a couple of years now I have been pretty skeptical about the future of Free and Open Source software in Finnish schools and education sector in general. In Finland we have a lot of open source expertise and know-how. We have developers. I also assume that majority of the (liberally) higher educated people in Finland, at least know what is "Open Source" and "Linux".

Within the next 12 years, 40 percent of IT jobs will be related to open source, and open source-based cloud computing will be solving many problems in the real world, open source advocates have predicted.

The latest Microsoft move to upset open source advocates is word the giant of Redmond is helping sponsor the open source census.

The deal has already stirred up open-source advocates. "If the strategy isn't to create uncertainty around Linux, it's hard to say what it is," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation.

Things need to change and Apple needs to be seen for what it really is: a threat to innovation and freedom. For as long as anyone can remember Microsoft has been seen as the primary enemy of free and open source software (FOSS).