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.

Free and open source software (FOSS) is well-known for promoting new development methods. Now, a European nonprofit organization known as FOSS Bridge hopes that FOSS can be equally innovative in promoting cooperation between companies and in fostering investment in developing nations.

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.

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.

The paper is particularly interesting because it focuses on how businesses integrate free software and open source components into software and services that they distribute to customers. This is an interesting contrast to most similar surveys that study FOSS adoption by businesses, because most surveys of this nature tend to focus on companies using FOSS as infrastructure.

By definition, free and open source software (FOSS) is opposed to proprietary companies. But, as Jim Zemlin and Stephen J. Vaughan-Nichols have pointed out recently, the FOSS community does not regard all proprietary companies with equal disdain.

Seriously, I have no clue why everyone feels like February and March are the *perfect* months for holding a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) event. Not only does it make it extremely difficult to choose which ones to attend, it leaves the rest of the year (all the way to the end, when FOSS.IN happens) uncovered, and perfect hunting grounds for companies who are not exactly known to be sending the FOSS world greeting cards at Christmas...

A FOSS Hut is an area dedicated to a specific focus area in FOSS, be it a project like KDE, community like SMC, user groups, special interest groups like mappers or start ups depending on FOSS.

In his note, Stallman made clear the difference between Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and open source as conceived by Eric Raymond and supporters in the business community. FOSS is not just "free as in free beer". Under FOSS software is free, not just for the user. The software itself has liberties.