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.

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!

For one, as you get deeper into the free software world, you start to see that directed financial support is important. You start to subscribe to free software products, doing automatic monthly payments, you donate, sometimes quite a lot, to developers who make software that matters to you.

Open source software initially was a head-scratcher: “How can you make money selling something for free?” But once open source advocates clarified the meaning of free – “Free as in speech, not as in beer” – the open source economy took off.

Software piracy is a scourge on the world of computing. Yet it's a problem the open source community doesn't have. That makes sense; it's all freely available. But this raises the question: if it's free how do the developers make any money? And how can it be any damn good?

We all believe that open source is associated with free, as in free speech, software. Any open source software can be downloaded free of cost and without paying any money and we have plenty of those softwares...

We all know we can use open source software without paying, but the real question is: what compels people to buy free stuff? Most widely used free and open source software can also be purchased. So what do you get for the money?

“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...» --

In our earlier article, "Facts and Friction on Open Source and Free Software" we have explained where "Open Source" is coming from and what is its relation to Free Software and the Free Software Foundation that represents it.