Re: [Pan-users] Re: OT: freedomware vs... Was: Building Pan on Windows?

[Rob]

On Wednesday 10 March 2010 12:13 pm, Joe Zeff wrote:
> I support it, but I, at least, also accept that most software will never
> be free, and that software companies have the right to keep their code
> proprietary if that's what they want.  If you don't like it, don't do
> business with them, but please, accept the fact that they have a moral
> and ethical right to do so if they desire.

While it may be that most of the lines of code written in the world will 
never be free, most of it also has free-as-in-freedom alternatives.  Our 
choice as free software enthusiasts is to choose the free alternatives and, 
as you suggest, skip the proprietary stuff.  Pan is a great example of 
that; my partner and I used Forte Agent for years, I switched to Linux and 
tried to make Agent play nice under Wine, then we both switched to Pan and 
he switched to Linux too.

And if no one has written an alternative to someone's proprietary software, 
like the niche products created by Leslie and thousands of other coders, 
and you need that functionality, you always have the option to start an 
alternative free software project yourself or pay someone to do so.  My 
clients have done the latter, though since they owned the code I wrote and 
never distributed it, its license was a moot point.

Rob