[bmm6o]

> I've done, and many of us do, tons of very valuable innovative work that we're not financially compensated for.

Arrangements in which you or others have previously engaged are not relevant, at least without an argument.

> I just don't think the language will thrive as well as it could if the number of users is limited by a financial barrier.

If this is actually your argument you should have lead with it. But it's not like Wolfram is new to the PL business, Mathematica has been pay since it was distributed on floppies and it has a large community. Making it free might make a stronger, larger community, but if you want to convince Wolfram to do that you'll need to propose a way to make up the lost revenue.