A human's birthright is to learn from and improve their tools. Making software proprietary demotes a tool to an appliance we can only interact with in prescribe

A human's birthright is to learn from and improve their tools. Making software proprietary demotes a tool to an appliance we can only interact with in prescribed ways as mere consumers, a role which is beneath us. It severely limits the benefits society derives from your work, and I believe it also harms the customers through learned helplessness. Our incentive should be getting paid for writing the code as a work for hire, not coding on spec and then rent-seeking against people for finding it useful. Before software, this was much less feasible and generally nobody bothered (e.g., this is why they still sell cars without the hood welded shut, and why simpler computers used to come with schematics).