Why You Should Pay for "Free" Software

Tell me, what's the difference between open source and commercial software? If you'd have asked me not long ago, I'd say that there was a world of difference between the two, and that they both sat at opposite ends of the software spectrum. "Isn't it bad," I thought, "to pay for software?"

No! The correct answer is that it's perfectly OK to pay for free software. Free and open source software at its heart is a philosophy: it is software that enables and empowers through the provision of its own internal code. This offers the public auditable standards, and an end consumer has the final say in choice, customization, and community.