Funding Yourself as a Free Software Developer
I avoid proprietary software as much as I can, but if Free Software will ever be truly vindicated, I have a feeling it will happen via business applications.<p>Convincing a sizable portion of consumers to even try free software--much less pay for it--is pretty much a lost cause. Consumers have made it abundantly clear they value convenience and &quot;free&quot; (as in gratis) over freedom, privacy, customizability, and any other ideal or benefit we can try to sell them on.<p>The best hope for consumers is for a set of profitable, high-quality, free business software companies to rise, and for some of those companies to devote money, dev time, ingenuity, and vision to solving consumer problems. You cannot take on proprietary software with ideals alone; you need resources.