It's Free Because It's Open Source

Some programmers are paid in money. Others are paid in the satisfaction of being involved in something they believe in. Both, with the backing of Sun Microsystems, are involved in creating the OpenOffice.org office suite.

So OpenOffice.org is absolutely free of price or ridiculous licensing constraint. You can download it for free, or get a handy $10 CD if you don't have a fast connection.

This means that you can not only use OpenOffice.org for free but make copies and give them to your friends. Give 100 copies out at your next parent-teacher conference. It's not only legal--it's encouraged.

If you're the IT person for your organization, this means that you never ever have to keep track of office suite licenses again.

Click here to learn more and see the actual legal text, since this summary is believed accurate but has no legal basis.