The initials above stand for “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch” and is a phrase well known to many – in essence, you have to pay or work for what you expect to receive.

Interestingly though, for some reason this doesn’t hold true in the world of software . There’s a vast amount of software available legally, and completely for free. That could mean free as in ‘Free Thought’ or free as in ‘Free Lunch’. And whichever one it is, maybe you can use it. Let’s take a look at the difference, and some examples of the products available.

A lot of “free” software is actually licensed under an Open Source model or license. So what does that mean? The primary difference between free software and Open Source software rests in how you can use it. Something given away for free, such as Grisoft’s AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition (more on this later)  is done with a license that bans commercial use and prohibits dis-assembly and reverse engineering. By comparison, a product like Apache Web Server is released with an Open Source license, which essentially says ‘you can use this product commercially, and you can even change the way it works. But you’re limited to what you can do with that modified version’. Obviously this is a simplification, but that’s the essence of it.

So what about the software itself? Many companies and organizations tend to shy away from “free” software because they expect it to be buggy, virus infested, unsupported or that there will be a ‘catch’ to it. And in reality that’s just not the case. The aforementioned AVG Anti-Virus is a great example of a free product available for home use, and one that has no trick at all. And Apache Web Server is the most popular server on the planet. Why? Because it’s fast, stable, and scalable. And it’s 100% free, and well supported.

Don’t want to pay $700 for a copy of Office Professional© 2007 ? Try Open Office. It’s completely free and can even be made to save files by default in the Microsoft Office© format. Need to build a new database? Try MySQL. Even operating systems can be had for the cost of a blank cd. There are more variations of the Linux operating system than I can get into here. And they’re all fully functional, supported, and 100% free.

There are graphics tools, mind map software, content management systems, window managers and more. A good place to start would be your search engine. Try searching for the class of software you want, then include ‘open source’ in the search string, such as ‘database open source’. And if you can’t find what you’re looking for try searching on SourceForge. There are literally tens of thousands of projects there, in all kinds of categories. You can probably find something there that will meet your needs.

Of course, be sure to read any license agreement carefully, and check with your own technical support provider about the compatibility of any new software. And then enjoy the freedom.