Why haven't I heard about Open Source products?

The products most people are familiar with are those that are advertised in print media, on the web, and on television. By definition, this means that these products are commercial, and have advertising budgets.

Some open source projects and companies do indeed advertise, but they usually lack the budget to pay for broad exposure. You may see advertisements for these types of products on tech-oriented websites, or in trade magazines.

Most projects, however, are community-driven and have no commercial backing. There is no advertising, and no centralized management or spokesperson. Occasionally, companies will stop working on a project commercially, and release it as open-source to the community, or a big company like IBM or Sun will buy a small project from someone else and release it under an open-source license.

For more information, see the Open Source page.