With the same fervor that rallied the open-source free software movement, members of such groups as Seattle Wireless, in Seattle, Washington, SFLan in San Francisco and Consume.net in London are bolting radio antennas to their roofs and broadcasting a shared invisible connection to their friends down the block.

FORBES: Digital Spin

SFLan and similar efforts such as Consume.net (in London), Guerrilla.net (in Cambridge, Massachusetts), and Seattle Wireless are reminiscent of the open-source movement, whose members contribute to free software such as the operating system Linux.

ECONOMIST: The wireless Internet: A LAN line | The

According to Craig Mundie, Microsoft's chief technical officer, as the open-source movement grows, it will get better at producing free clones of commercial software.

ECONOMIST: Software

This is the movement for free software, whose code can be downloaded by anybody and is written and refined by a community of hobbyists.

ECONOMIST: Linux breaks another window