The words “free” and “open-source” are sometimes (incorrectly) used interchangeably when in reality there is a big difference between the two.

“Free” refers to whether or not the developer of a piece of software wants financial renumeration (ie., money) for it. If the developer (individual, company, etc.) does not want money or other form of financial compensation for their software, that software is said to be free. Nothing is implied as to whether the source code is “open” or “closed”.

When we refer to a piece of software (application), we usually refer to the binaries. These are the compiled final deliverables of a computer program. In modern computing, developers write their programs (applications/software) in high-level languages that are then compiled into code that the computer can understand. The initial code written by the programmer is called “source code”. This is the developer’s intellectual property and she can chose whether or not she wants to release this source code separately from the application/program/software itself.

If the developer choses to release the source code for her application, the application is said to be “open source”. Meaning, that the source is available for download, public scrutiny, improvements, etc. An application can be open source and not free. The two concepts are not related.

In fact, an application may be any of the following things (or combinations thereof):

* Free, closed-source * Free, open-source * Commercial, closed-source * Commercial, open-source

It is not uncommon to see applications being offered under dual licenses (or even more than two licenses.)

OSFlash.org is primarily concerned with Open Source Flash projects. Where an open-source Flash project doesn’t exist, but a free one does, we may list it here. Where no free or open-source alternatives exist, we may list a commercial, closed-source application here to aid developers in finding the right tool for the job. However, such projects/tools/etc. will be clearly labelled and may be found in their own sections.

What are these sections? (Aral)