So what happened to open source as a business? There was a wave of “commercial open source” companies that were going to change the world, including SugarCRM, Alfresco, Jasper, Pentaho, and ActiveGrid, a company I started in 2003 to bring open source software into businesses.

While free software automatically qualifies as a solution to vendor lock-in, monopolistic practices, prohibitive licensing fees, digital rights management, and a variety of other technological issues, the philosophy and ideals it stands for directly conflict with many companies’ traditional business model of selling software licenses.

"Hello, finally. This is an unusual talk in which I'm going to start by explaining the ideas of free software, and then go on to talk about how they extend to some things other than software.

For me, the high point of the conference was the chance to listen to people like RMS, Eben and Jimmy Wales - and a lot of other very interesting people with very interesting ideas.

Because we were sort of immersed in ideas for three days, I shall structure this report around these “ideas”.

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.

For anyone wanting a translation from lawyer-speak re patents, this article cuts through the legal jargon and gives you the meat of the discussion, as it were.

The people who attend BarCamp and similar events don't limit their involvement to just those events. Many are programmers, but there are other constituencies as well: Authors of open-source code, bloggers, Twitterers, students, and corporate employees with "real" jobs. All can sense a grassroots technology groundswell and they want to be a part of it.

How four vendors of desktop GNU/Linux lost their direction after joining Microsoft's software patents racket

The rapid advance of the cloud, along with other existing Internet-based services, into the business space has highlighted the need for trust in the underlying protocols that provide the driving force behind the Internet. Some are now arguing that a secure software-based DNS signing system is essential if business is to maximise the potential of the cloud.