Ok, I think I see the problem, a couple of them actually....
There's been a lot of emphasis on contributions to open source and particularly free software being made in people's spare time. This overlooks contributions that people are paid in one way or another to make. Writing free-as-in-libre software are their jobs in the money economy.
There's also a lot of confusion in what is meant by free software and open source software. I'm sure Dwayne and Chuck and many a lurker have seen this discussed to their utter boredom, so I'm actually surprised that they'd lump free and OS software together ("FOSS"). But I think the distinctions are important for understanding why anybody would find in free software a vision for any kind of lefty project.
One basic problem is the the word "free" winds up confusing the issue between the gratis and libre meanings, and in this case it's libre. As others have pointed out, it's ok to charge for free software, and I'll add that gratis software is very often proprietary, and you are bound by the conditions of whatever license it's under..
The GPL was created not as a way make software cheaper or to improve it by enabling mass contributions, but to keep it in an intellectual commons. Declaring a work public domain allows it to be used in a proprietary work, in effect profiting off of the commons without contributing to it. The GPL (and other similar licences) require any program using GPLed code to be distributed with its source code, in effect to keep it in the commons.
After the popular success of famously GPLed Linux, "Open Source" was created explicitly to take advantage of the effect of having open source code towards creating robust software while making it more friendly for proprietary interests. The robustness and bug squashing effects of open source software were quite unintended consequences of the GPL, which had the priority of keeping software in a commons. Richard Stallman, creator of the GPL, has said he'd push for free software even if it were of lesser quality.
But the fact that software held in common for principled reasons winds up whooping proprietary ass on grounds of quality is delicous. It's a wonderful propaganda angle to have your local private property enthusiast warbling about their wonderful their PC, and you get to point out that all that wonderful software is in effect collectively owned..
-- Andy