The following is strictly related to my thoughts on getting software developed and distributed (i.e., funding / incentive models for building an maintaining the

The following is strictly related to my thoughts on getting software developed and distributed (i.e., funding / incentive models for building an maintaining the software). My personal views -- it really depends on what the software is for. In the case of foundational software (OS, libraries, utilities) then Free software has some major advantages that outweigh the disadvantages. The disadvantages of Free software come from the lack of paying customers that fund development. But in the above use case many of the primary users are also developers, who have an incentive for contributing back improvements. (In the case of OS an Libraries, I consider the primary users to be developers, as end-users use software that runs on top of this foundation, even though users also use the OS, they typically primarily use it to execute other applications). For the next layer above, you have applications software. If the app is aimed towards businesses, then the funding model of businesses licensing the software from a vendor with a pool of developers seems to have positive returns, that outweigh the potential contributions that can come up from making the code follow the four Software Freedoms. Same may apply if the app is aimed at non-technical users. For apps aimed at technical users, many of these can fall under the previous category of foundational software. The next category is entertainment related software. This I consider almost equivalent to books, a movie, or music. Most of the value is in the creative side, vs the technical side. Therefore Software Freedom applied to a game brings not much more value than the same type of Freedom applied to a blockbuster movie.