"Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is now firmly established as an alternative to commercial, proprietary software in many areas of software utilization. The fundamental freedom of being able to use, distribute, modify and redistribute the modifications made to a software released as FOSS, as well as the availability of FOSS without licensing fees and with source code, has been responsible for its widespread acceptance and adoption. The FOSS community-driven model of software development and maintenance has been recognized even by established proprietary software companies as having its own merit and advantages."

The benefits offered by FOSS have been particularly useful for poor developing countries around the world. In particular, the ability to obtain FOSS without licensing fees has proven to be very beneficial to the users in these regions as this makes information and communications technology (ICT) more affordable to them. The localization of software applications is also facilitated on a FOSS platform and this will further help towards bridging the digital divide."

"Free Software (also called open source software or libre software) has become one of the most talked about phenomena in the ICT world in recent years. This is remarkable, not only for the usual reasons—that open source has been around for many years as a volunteer driven success story before being discovered by big business and now government—but also because it has largely developed quietly on its own without the headline coverage and glare of international attention that it now receives."

"The information economy is a large market. Including the provision of infrastructure and services for the creation, exchange and processing of information and communication services as well as the sales of information itself, this market is now in the range of 10% of GDP in most developed countries, and accounts for more than half of their economic growth. Software is one of the key elements driving ICTs’ role in the economy, and the structure, competitiveness, performance of the ICT industry has potential to be strongly affected by Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS1). Financed by the European Commission’s Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry, a study has been carried out by a team led by UNU-MERIT, the Netherlands, to identify the role of FLOSS in the economy, its direct impact on the ICT sector, its indirect impact on ICT-related sectors and to recommend policies based on forecasted scenarios."

"Much has been said about the significance of free and open source software (FOSS) for economic development. For example, it can help Governments and businesses to minimize their reliance in single suppliers of proprietary software. Moreover, OSS development can play a central role in upgrading a country’s human resource capacity and technological skill base (UNCTAD, 2003b)."

"Free and open-source software (FOSS) challenges our preconceptions about how software is produced and distributed. The software industry today generates yearly revenues in excess of $300 billion. FOSS is software that has made its source code public and allows – perhaps even motivates – users to change the source code and redistribute the derivative software. Liberating the source code supports broad collaborative development in software production, better porting with other programmes produced by independent programmers, and the customization of software to meet different commercial, regulatory, cultural and linguistic requirements. Most importantly, in particular for developing countries, FOSS allows today’s and tomorrow’s experts and information technology (IT) leaders to acquire skills and advance their knowledge rapidly."

"Software is extremely important to the new information society we are entering. It is the cyber nerve system of the new information and communication technologies (ICTs), and has a disproportionate economic impact on this new world. The use of Free Open Source Software can make a real difference."

“The present Study is a feasibility study about pooling (or sharing, exchanging) software and knowledge between public sector administrations across Europe. A condition for greater re-use of software of the public sector is that software is available as open source. To encourage the sharing of software, the feasibility of creating a common software pool is considered. This would be a service combining a European knowledge centre and best practice. The legal, functional and technical constraints are evaluated within the present Study.”