For some reason, people still can't seem to get their heads around the idea that you can make money, big money, from FOSS (Free Software/Open Source). It's a pity that more of them couldn't have been in New York City this week for the O'Reilly Money:Tech conference.

In 2004, Brandeis economist Adam Jaffe and Harvard Business School professor Josh Lerner published Innovation and its Discontents: How Our Broken Patent System is Endangering Innovation and Progress, and What to Do About It - a rare book on patents and written for generalists, not patent lawyers. "Broken" is strong language, but it gets attention.

Its ironic how there are so many users who cling to Microsoft Windows and then proudly tout that the first thing they do is run out and load up on free or open source applications. Every year, we see lists of "best free apps" or "essential apps" for Windows, and every year, the apps become more and more like watered-down versions of what is available on almost any Linux-based system.

Let me get right to the point: The time is now for open-source offerings to get their collective act together.

Torvalds has been to Linux.conf.au and Torvalds has spoken. During a wide-ranging interview the Linux founder speculated on the future of hardware and the control that open source offers vendors. The ramifications of this are remarkable. Come hear the word of Torvalds.

This article might seem to be not serious, or even a little bit heretical. Well, so be it. I’ll write what I think I should write and what I see as true. Whether is it the same in your case — dear Reader — we’ll see. First of all, let me ask you a basic question: Which operating system do you use? What are the possible answers? Windows, Linux, Solaris or Mac OS X of course. But let us try to think different for a moment. Maybe it is possible, that this answer would be, for example KDE?

Microsoft's aggressive defense of its intellectual property, which includes claims that Linux violates a number of its patents, is nothing more than "a marketing thing," according to Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel.