I know a lot of people who use open source every day, from OpenOffice to the GIMP and Linux, open source has something for everyone. Recently I was asked how could someone give back to the developers of Free Software?

Steve Ballmer apparently likes open source. Well, so long as it drives Windows revenue. And doesn't replace any. Ever. In fact, as he said at an event in Microsoft last week in London that he hopes to see all open-source innovation going to Windows, rather than Linux (more below).

Microsoft's detente with the open-source world is growing stronger by the minute. Steve Ballmer said today that he wouldn't consider an open-source-based business model a deterrent to buying a company Microsoft found interesting.

People continue to wonder how to make money in the free and open source software world. It’s dressed up in discussions of how one makes money when you give away the software for free.

Open source means different things to different people. Calling something open source doesn't always mean the same thing to everyone. What does it mean to you?

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!

Using Windows as a free software enthusiast is isn’t always easy but often people don’t have a real choice and nothing can be done. But that doesn’t mean you have to abandon free software altogether salving one’s conscience. I’ll leave Firefox out of the List.

Lately, some articles appeared which stated the open-source way of development didn't bring us any innovation. Jaron Lanier even goes further by saying closed source is the better approach to innovation. However, these people miss a lot of important points and facts about innovation, and therefore the conclusions they make are false. Having read a lot about innovation myself lately, I will try to show that the open-source way of doing things leads to more innovation, and more important, I will give some real life examples showing the closed-source inventions aren't that innovative at all, and pointing to some open-source inventions the other writers missed.

Scribus is an open-source DTP application, started in 2001 and written by people who are clearly opinionated on subjects like typography and page design. The program is a free download and is cross-platform, with versions available for Windows Vista/XP/2000, Mac OS X, OS/2 and Linux.