"..RMS’s other mission here is to promote the Free Software Movement. The creator of the GPL...is at pains to correct misunderstandings of what the term free software means and to draw a distinction between it and the open source movement.

At first glance it might seem like a no-brainer: Get your intranet software and its source code for free or pay big bucks for proprietary, closed source software. But deciding to adopt either open source or proprietary software must go beyond the issue of money.

With proprietary solutions you often get the collective knowledge of the current and past users of that software or service.

This opinion piece (PDF) in Notices of the American Mathematical Society, argues that since mathematicians increasingly rely on software in generating their results, we should be increasingly concerned about the use of proprietary math software, since (a) not everyone has access to that software and (b) the code used by that software is usually closed-source, so the algorithms used can’t general

“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...» --

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.

Open source has a lot of advantages. For starters, the license is free, which means you take a huge part of the expense out of the equation, but just because the license is free doesn't mean the entire implementation is. You still have to learn about it, set it up, possibly customize it, roll it out, train your users and so forth, just as with any enterprise software.

Addressing a gathering here organised by Swatantra - Samudaya - Swadeshi Software for Suvarna Karnataka, he said children should have access to the source code, the basic programme of the software which would provide them an opportunity to practically learn the working of a software.

There is both a perceptual and an actual channel of openness in software. Users value the freedom of mobility as very close to what coders value as the freedom of source code access. The only reason there is a real gap here is that closed source systems, like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., don't actually allow you freedom of movement. It merely feels like that because the application is free and, fiscally speaking, the barrier for entry or exit is zero.