Though often the terms Free Software and Open Source are used interchangeably, open source software is not the same as free software. Open source software is free in the sense ‘freedom’. It is freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software depending on the software licenses on which the open source software is distributed. First and one of the important features of open software is that it comes with source code. Not just with the binaries.

While using open source software, there will not be licensing fee one need to spend for getting the binaries of an application. In addition there will be no per-copy fees can be asked for modified versions of the software. This lead to lesser total cost of ownership [TCO] when one uses open source software instead of proprietary software.