"There is an alternative to pirated software. You don't need to pirate software to use good software. We often read raids of shops and businesses using illegal software. People want to use software, and FOSS is an alternative," said Dr. Giovanni Tapang, member of the Computer Professionals Union and Agham, an organization of Filipino scientists and engineers, in an interview last week.

Ever since the dawn of commercial software, piracy has been a problem without a realistic solution that meets the needs of both the software vendor and the end user. From serial keys to outright DRM (digital rights management) schemes, the software industry has left no preventive measure untried.

I talk to people a lot about free and open software. I usually find that people have never heard of it before. They are only aware of the expensive CDs that come in almost-empty boxes down at Harvey Norman or the local computer shop.

Inaccurate reporting and spinning about Novell's gift to Microsoft; The BBC to prevent Free software users from accessing services they have already paid for

The end of 2008 might see the dawn of a new revolution in the computer industry and in people’s lives. Maybe 2009 will be remembered as the year when the “world went mobile”. What does this mean for the (free and non-free) software industry?

"...The announcement confirmed that Microsoft was planning to use its software patent portfolio against interoperating products by requiring a patent license for all commercial activity [...] Microsoft's patent licences are incompatible with Free Software [...] Free Software's freedoms to use, study, share and improve software without additional restrictions are key to the success and utility of Free Software in both commercial and non-commercial ICT infrastructure. They are also the basis for many of today's working examples of interoperability and competition..."

When I first tell people about open source software, one of the most common questions I get is this: "I just don't understand why people would create software if they don't get paid for it!

"It created a bit of a stir at the O'Reilly Radar Executive Briefing on Open Source a few weeks ago when Eben Moglen, who'd been invited to speak with me about free software licensing in the era of Web 2.0, chose instead to take me to task for talking about open source rather than free software for the past ten years, and for "wasting time promoting commercial products." A number of people asked t

We have lots of commercial software available to use on different platform to complete our different work. As they are not free and sometime we do not able to purchase or for some reason we urgently need some software to complete any task but without having a licensed copy of commercial software we can not perform that job.