One of many great reasons to care about open protocols and the ability to use third-party client applications. Software freedom (protocol freedom? interface fre

One of many great reasons to care about open protocols and the ability to use third-party client applications. Software freedom (protocol freedom? interface freedom?) has _practical_ benefits for the public good. Attempts to deviate towards closed systems and protocols should generally be viewed as monopolistic antisocial rent-seeking by default, in my opinion.