> My main point is that in a market where can freely consume a freeware, free software and fully proprietary software is a free market. A world with only free software is still one sided.
And my argument is a world with only free software is just one without copyright law. How about we add in a new kind of software - loanshark software. You have to pay monthly and you get a random file from the source code each month as per the EULA. We don't have much of that software around, though, so I guess the market is lopsided and needs more balance?
It is all artificial, and yes, even the release-the-source part of the GPL is artificial. But if we lived in a world without copyright, we wouldn't need the release the source stipulations because you couldn't profit off artificial scarcity of information anymore anyway, so not releasing the source would just be considered a dick move. But platform lock in matters a lot less when you have no way to profit by "having the platform" since you can't enforce distribution restrictions.
> but if there is no free alternative competitive sacrificing is how we live in this world.
What software is there without free alternatives? I'd get started tomorrow on any unique problem not addressed to some degree by a free software project. If you are going to argue "the proprietary has more features and convenience than the free", then of course it does, our current copyright regime enables the profiteering off information denial, you can make profit off of denying freedoms. So businesses can bloom under it. It just means you are leeching value out of artificial constructs and are redirecting effort and money artificially.
> Is there not enough people already writing code and plugins for LibreOffice suite? Sounds like free software moment is pushing people to write free software because they don't have enough developers who are willing to put time writing code for free software.
There are never enough people. We could have most of the human species devoted to the development of free software and we wouldn't have enough. There is always work to be done, especially if you are claiming MS office as having features Libre doesn't - then yes, Libre is understaffed and needs either funding or developer hours to make it better, and that is your (and my, and everyone elses) responsibility if you believe in software freedom. If you don't, and won't consider it, then the entire argument is moot since the whole position of free software assumes a belief in it by providing its rational argument for why it is optimal and why proprietary software is bad.
> That's why free software movement from R.S. is radical to me.
And your stance is radical to me, because I think respecting a users freedom should be assumed, not extraneous.
> If we shall, free software is awesome, it has the ability to study and modify the software in any way the user wants, now, how do I make a living off my work?
You do the same thing you do anywhere else, you propose value and seek compensation for your work. "I want to add bloom filters to GIMP, but will need about 400 hours to do so, and at $50 an hour that is about $20000 of work, so if I can raise that money I'll implement the feature".
The same thing applies to pretty much all other copyrighted works, but this is beyond the scope of free software arguments and into the anti-copyright movement, but it boils down to "charge for scarce resources, not for artificially restricted infinite information".
And my argument is a world with only free software is just one without copyright law. How about we add in a new kind of software - loanshark software. You have to pay monthly and you get a random file from the source code each month as per the EULA. We don't have much of that software around, though, so I guess the market is lopsided and needs more balance?
It is all artificial, and yes, even the release-the-source part of the GPL is artificial. But if we lived in a world without copyright, we wouldn't need the release the source stipulations because you couldn't profit off artificial scarcity of information anymore anyway, so not releasing the source would just be considered a dick move. But platform lock in matters a lot less when you have no way to profit by "having the platform" since you can't enforce distribution restrictions.
> but if there is no free alternative competitive sacrificing is how we live in this world.
What software is there without free alternatives? I'd get started tomorrow on any unique problem not addressed to some degree by a free software project. If you are going to argue "the proprietary has more features and convenience than the free", then of course it does, our current copyright regime enables the profiteering off information denial, you can make profit off of denying freedoms. So businesses can bloom under it. It just means you are leeching value out of artificial constructs and are redirecting effort and money artificially.
> Is there not enough people already writing code and plugins for LibreOffice suite? Sounds like free software moment is pushing people to write free software because they don't have enough developers who are willing to put time writing code for free software.
There are never enough people. We could have most of the human species devoted to the development of free software and we wouldn't have enough. There is always work to be done, especially if you are claiming MS office as having features Libre doesn't - then yes, Libre is understaffed and needs either funding or developer hours to make it better, and that is your (and my, and everyone elses) responsibility if you believe in software freedom. If you don't, and won't consider it, then the entire argument is moot since the whole position of free software assumes a belief in it by providing its rational argument for why it is optimal and why proprietary software is bad.
> That's why free software movement from R.S. is radical to me.
And your stance is radical to me, because I think respecting a users freedom should be assumed, not extraneous.
> If we shall, free software is awesome, it has the ability to study and modify the software in any way the user wants, now, how do I make a living off my work?
You do the same thing you do anywhere else, you propose value and seek compensation for your work. "I want to add bloom filters to GIMP, but will need about 400 hours to do so, and at $50 an hour that is about $20000 of work, so if I can raise that money I'll implement the feature".
The same thing applies to pretty much all other copyrighted works, but this is beyond the scope of free software arguments and into the anti-copyright movement, but it boils down to "charge for scarce resources, not for artificially restricted infinite information".