[nube]
What's open source? :confused:
Code base, what does that mean? :confused:
[/nube]
This is my explanation but it will still probably confuse the average nube.
Applications are normally written using a programming language like C which computer programmers can understand, this is called the source code and in order for the computer to be able run the program it needs to be converted to machine code (which is a binary format consisting of 0s and 1s) - only the computer can understand this. Because people can't read machine code companies like Apple and Microsoft have chosen to distribute their software in the binary format as it prevents people from figuring out how the program works, including the format it stores your data in when you save files. Companies can also lock you into using their software because competing programs can't read files created with thier software.
Free software is different, the GPL (General Public License) asks that you provide people accesss to the source code when you distribute the software, this means everyone has the freedom to, copy it, learn how it works and modify it. You might wonder how this effects you if you're not a programmer, there are many schools of thought on this, but most importantly it means you don't have to pay to use it (for any purpose) and companies can't lock you into using thier software as other programmers can figure out how it works write programs to read files saved by it.
By the way you can't force people to pay for open source software, unless you include a proprietary part but then it wouldn't be totally free would it?