Free Software user #1:
Free software is a matter of freedom: people should be free to use software in all the ways that are socially useful.
Free Software user #2:
I want to be able to use the software that allows me to do my job and earn an income. Don't ask me not to use software just because I can't freely redistribute its source code.
Hmm...
ESR
Matts on 2002-04-11T07:14:54
I subscribe to ESR's viewpoint on this. If free software doesn't make my job easier than non-free software (and that can be for whatever reason - mostly for me it's because free software is cheaper!), then I'm not going to choose the free solution over the commercial one.
However I'm also not going to pirate software (and yes I will use that term - language changes. RMS can bite me). Or music. Or any "copyright based" IP. Because I make my living effectively creating copyright protected IP (even when I'm uploading stuff to CPAN, it's my copyright that protects it). So based on that I make a decision to always choose free software when I can, because yes, it allows me to do my job without getting in my way (where "getting in my way" would imply having to maintain copies of licenses for audit purposes).
