Companies are trying to save money and increase innovation by integrating third party code, including free open source code, into their software supply chain.

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The notion that free code should beget more free code is central to the open-source movement, but it's a sticky point to companies, like Cisco Systems, that make a living off of intellectual property.

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Because Google offers Android for free, including the source code, it makes Google look like a saint, or a company of higher moral standard than Apple or Microsoft.

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Like Firefox's, Chrome's source code is free for anybody to change and improve, and even for rival browser-makers to incorporate.

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And Johansen is an advocate of the open-source philosophy of sharing software code for free.

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Although MySQL and its underlying recipe are available free, any added code built around the open-source product must also be made open source.

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