[latj]

So many people take FLOSS for granted- especially in a place like this where most people are just trying to figure out how to get equity in the next pied piper.

The bottom line is that everyone's life is better because of FLOSS. So many of us owe our careers to an army of forgotten programmers who share their time and brain power to build software for the public domain.

If offers artists in other countries an alternative to expensive software like photoshop. It allows a startup to lower the cost of opening a call center by not having to buy Windows licenses. The cancer researchers trying to find a personalized treatment for your colon cancer use FLOSS. Your state government uses software from Microsoft and Oracle. And even those are affected by and improved due to the existence of FLOSS.

I know you wont understand this. But there are a lot of kids reading this too and they should know not everyone agrees with you.

[bykovich]

No, I benefit from free software every day. I'm glad that there's software that isn't encumbered by expensive licensing schemes. What I'm taking issue with is free software orthodoxy, or with the notion that there is some sort of "ethical" issue at play with software that is different from the ethical issues at play with the usage and distribution of /any/ kind of product. "Software freedom" is an odd end-unto-itself.