What many small business owners don’t know is that there is free software that can help them operate smoothly – and professionally. I’m talking about email servers, HR software, word processing programs, graphic design software. Even antivirus programs.

Yup, all FREE.

Here are five open source software programs that are easy on the wallet and your operations.

1. OpenOffice

Kiss MS Office goodbye. This is your open-source alternative. It is FREE to download and use and it contains programs like word processing, spreadsheets, presentations – and more. It’s also available in many languages and works on common operating systems.

2. GnuCash

Get to know this software – fast.

GnuCash is a personal and small business accounting software that is FREE and available for GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X, and MS Windows. It’s easy to use and allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses. Some have even called it “as quick and intuitive to use as a checkbook register.”

3. OrangeHRM

This human resource management software comes with rich features and a friendly UI.  The system is backed by professional support services as well as a fast-growing and knowledgeable worldwide open source community.

4. GIMP

This is your alternative to Adobe Photoshop.

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It has many capabilities including photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

5. Clamwin

ClamWin is a antivirus program for Microsoft Windows 7/ Vista / XP / Me / 2000 / 98 and Windows Server 2008 and 2003. ClamWin Free Antivirus does not include an on-access real-time scanner. You need to manually scan a file in order to detect a virus or spyware – which could be a good thing for Windows users who are barraged with automatic scans and updates.

This, of course, is not an exhaustive list of free open source software for small business. There are dozens more.

The bottom line is that you’ll want to save where you can now so that you can invest in specialized computer software down the road – and really take your business to the next level.

The responses are usually varied,  yet none of them offer a definitive answer.

Curious myself, I Googled to find the answer which led me to one enlightening blog post on the matter at InformationWeek.

The title: You Say Open, I Say Free … Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off 

Now c’mon… that’s funny.

The author, Serdar Yelgulalp, addresses this vocabulary war by sounding off on the context with which these labels are used.

Is a vendor that offers both an open source and a commercially-licensed edition of a product an “open source vendor?”  Some would argue no. They would say OSD refers to the software itself – not the vendor or the business strategy.

On the other hand, some say that vendors with hybrid licensing models could be called “open source vendors” depending on their licensing terms and agreements.

So there you have it.

Still no definitive answer – yet a mighty entertaining dialogue.

In the end, I would have to agree with Yelgulalp.

Does all this even matter? Why should we care how the software was developed or licensed? The focus should be on whether the product is any good.

Still though, some of this petty semantic stuff is worthy of a good think – and a laugh.