Free software movement – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And once again it sneaks into my thoughts… as i sit here on my iBook with it’s totally proprietary os and hardware platforms…

This paragraph hits especially hard:
“On the other hand, many who prefer the term “free software” and consider themselves part of the movement do not believe proprietary software to be strictly immoral. They argue, however, that freedom is valuable (both socially and pragmatically) as a property of software in its own right, separate from technical quality in a narrow sense. Moreover, they may use the term “free software” to distance themselves from claims that “open-source” software is always technically superior to proprietary software (which is often demonstrably false, at least in the short term). In this sense, they object that “open-source” advocates, by concentrating solely on technical merits, encourage users to sacrifice their freedom (and the long-term benefits thereof) for short-term conveniences that proprietary software may provide.”