> All in all it seems that this trend of releasing apps for free does nobody any good, since it will stall innovation at some point. It does nobody any good? H

> All in all it seems that this trend of releasing apps for free does nobody any good, since it will stall innovation at some point. It does nobody any good? How about the users? I don't buy the "it will stall innovation" argument. Having Linux be free didn't stall innovation, quite the opposite. I'd even say without it being free, we wouldn't be where we are now in regards to innovation. Large companies would still be in control. I know many companies depending on Linux, Firefox, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Perl, PHP, Ruby, Python, Java, Flash, Apache, BIND, OpenOffice, irssi, Postfix; and the many innovations these free products provided and facilitated. If I think about the projects that weren't out to make money, but to do something good, the value of free software becomes even greater. But at the base of it all: For some of us technology is still more about solutions and making life better, rather than just money. I have a job, I'm happy, why should I take money for software I would've written anyway?