Software is expensive. Microsoft Office is $400, Windows XP is $200, Adobe Photoshop is $650. That's a lot of money for a few programs that can be hard to live without? Fortunately there is a better way, it's called open source.
Most software is a product of a company. Someone decided to make a product, they hire a bunch of people to do it and then they package it and sell it.  Open Source works a bit differently. Anybody can work on open source, whether they are writing code or testing it out. If enough people work on something a great product will emerge. The best part is, it's always free.
The most popular example is the firefox browser.  There was a time when firefox was not that great. As time went on more and more people helped out on it and it has become the best web browser around. The more popular it has become, the more people work on it and the better it is.
Over the coming weeks (I'm back on my every other week schedule), I'm going to take a look at a few (at least three) other open source programs and weigh the pro's and con's of each.
Are there any programs that you wish you could get for free? Let me know and I'll see if I can find a open source and/or free alternative.