The question of whether business can co-exist with free and open source software (FOSS) was settled long ago. It can, and not only successful companies like Red Hat but also the willingness of venture capitalists to fund FOSS business models proves the case.

Contrary to what you may have heard, free and open source software (FOSS) is not anti-business. But neither is it pro-business. More accurately, FOSS is focused on concerns outside of traditional business, such as user freedom and code quality. For this reason, making the two work together successfully requires special efforts and resources, as well as careful study of the various options.

I wanted to show you some real world examples of how successful women in IT and FOSS in particular think about the gender issue. These women are not some gray, anonymous, unsubstantiated array of possible FOSS participants, but real life women who have their own ideas and ideals.

I consider myself to be a FOSS proponent and there is only one thing that counts to me: great code. I don't care whether you are black or white, atheist or Christian, male or female. I don't check the "About" boxes before I give my judgment. Great code is just great code. It's what FOSS is all about: meritocracy.

I want to tell you some kind of so-called success story of one company (where I work nowadays): company that chose freedom path as a base for software development. There are many “theoretical” talks about how free software can be used commercially, that it can greatly stimulate business activity and so on. There are very few real life examples of that.

Companies using FOSS in their solutions are delivering on a real subscription for value model. In each case they make it easier to use their solution (convenience = value) and easier to derive more value out of the solution (better ROI and better enabled new business opportunities), not simply easier to pay for it.

"If you care about FOSS generally, I need you to show up at the HIMSS meeting. If you care about FOSS in Health IT, it is especially important that you be there. I believe that FOSS is the only real hope for untangling the mess that is Health IT." - interview with Fred Trotter

After having a meeting with a medium sized business owner about his need for a website it became painfully clear to me that "we" as the FOSS "community" need to do a much better job at making what it is we are offering more visible. We need something that communicates what FOSS is and what benefits there are for using FOSS applications.

This is a slide show that runs through the 15 most influential people of the FOSS business world according to eweek.com. There are brief bios given for each. No RMS though... I guess he doesn't count as influencing business or maybe it's because he isn't a businessman. Or maybe it's because it's "Open Source business influencers" not "free software business influencers".