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This technical note surveys the concepts of free and open source software and hardware. It introduces the concepts in general, providing a brief history of their development and numerous examples of how companies employ them in practice. Further, it identifies various business models whereby companies can benefit from using and contributing to free and open source software and hardware. Importantly, these concepts often go counter to traditional business strategy teaching related to owning resources that are rare and inimitable. On its face, using free and open source software or hardware should not provide any competitive advantage because competitors can use the same products for free. Further, contributing to the creation of these products or open sourcing previously proprietary software or hardware, especially that protected by patents or other intellectual property protections, seems to be counter to these traditional strategy theories. However, in a growing number of contexts, it may make strategic sense for a company to use and/or contribute to open source software or hardware.