“The Red Hat European VP, Colin Tenwick, has emphasised that
there is more to the open source movement than simply free
software. In an interview with Silicon.com, he claimed that the
major advantage was greater freedom of choice and innovation.”
“It’s true that the most obvious feature of the open source
movement has been the fact that software is made available free of
charge. Developers are invited to improve the source they find, but
only on the basis that the improved version remains available on
the same terms. For the person who simply wants to use the
software, and has no interest in development, this translates
simply into free software.”
“But of course that isn’t the whole story by a long way, as
Colin Tenwick reminds us. The software isn’t just given away with
no strings. A great deal of care went into the design of the GNU
agreement that governs most open source software. The emphasis of
the agreement is on freedom of information and freedom to use
software in a variety of ways, not on price.”