[boomboomsubban]

>Because without it we all pay much higher prices than we normally would, and we get sub-par quality/innovation. Unless you're somehow intimating that proprietary software can be completely eliminated, but I don't think that's the case. I don't think that such views are grounded in reality.

There has been no shortage of quality and innovative free software. I see no reason that restrictions on a users rights would encourage innovation or a quality product.

Reading the rest of your post, you also seem to view free software as primarily about price. The picture you paint sounds more like what Internet Explorer did to browsers than any free software I can think of.

> So, instead of a company being a developer tools company, they're now something else that also happens to give away developer tools

Or you can take the existing developer tools and improve and extend them. Having access to a large amount of your competitors resources allows you to more easily compete on an even field.