Intro to Free 3D CAM Options (pt. 1)

If you're looking to get started in CNC (or even if you've already begun), chances are you've faced this choice: Do I spend money on a CAM program or not?

I'm currently using MeshCAM, which is a $250 piece of software that lets you do some pretty amazing stuff at the consumer-level. But in the interests of being a well informed hobbyist, I decided to take a look at two free options for generating 3-axis CNC toolpaths:

1) FreeMILL by MecSoft

2) PyCAM by some blokes here --> http://sourceforge.net/projects/pycam/