Open source software has become quite popular lately and I think it’s awesome that free software like Amarok, Open Office, GIMP and so on, are becoming so good that they not only rival their paid counterparts, but surpass them in many ways.

Open source moves at a different speed to commercial software. This has become apparent over the last decade as Linux and its Open Source fellow travelers (Apache, Open Office, MySQL, Firefox et al) gradually established their position in the software world.

Open source software has a lot to offer the business world. Aside from the fact that they’re generally free, many open source programs are more secure, reliable and customizable than their proprietary counterparts. In fact, many large companies, including big names like Amazon, Google, and Yahoo, run their servers with Linux rather than Windows.

Open source moves at a different speed to commercial software. This has become apparent over the last decade as Linux and its open source fellow travellers (Apache, Open Office, MySQL, Firefox ,et al) gradually established their position in the software world.

In yet another attack on open source software usage around the world, a copyright-focused organization is claiming that use of open source software promotes piracy. With a new 498-page report (PDF) that repeatedly defies logic, the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) argues that the office of the U.S.

Open source has taken the world by storm. Numerous open source applications are being used by satisfied users. The most prominent and widely used open source products are Firefox, Linux Distributions,Sugar CRM, GIMP, Wordpress, emacs etc. The latest to join this ever increasing bandwagon is Google Chrome.

The Coverity open source integrity report is an objective presentation of open source code quality and defect data collected from the Coverity Scan service.

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".

The Icelandic government has released a policy on free and open source software. In short, the policy states that when buying software free and open source software should be considered on an equal footing with proprietary software, that software based on open standards shall be chosen, that lock-ins to specific vendors should be avoided (choosing free software is one means to achieve this), that bespoke or customized software shall be reusable (and free and open source software achieves this), and finally that students of Icelandic educational institutes shall have the opportunity to learn about and use free and open source software on a par with proprietary software.

This policy applies to all state institutions and organizations operated with public funds.