This concept discusses the technical, organizational and monetary advantages and disadvantages of commercial versus open source software. GIS/T industry and research are slowly but consistently moving toward the openness of software and source code. Open software entails some clear advantages like continuous development of new applications, building community of developers and users, possibility to start a project even if limited funding is available, increase the sustainability chances of a project, etc. to name a few. On the other side, proprietary initiatives in GIS/T are holding their roots to the ground by developing cutting edge tools for handling challenging environments and present other advantages as well. Some of them could be: a more stable software or a dedicated support service for the client. Both open and proprietary geospatial software solutions co-exist by the application of the appropriate IPR licences to each type of solution. The future is how these commercial and open source geospatial software find synergy in handling large projects.