My apologies if I seemed smug, tedious, condescending, knee-jerky, or whatever. I'm not intentionally repeating anything I read somewhere else. I'm just thinkin

My apologies if I seemed smug, tedious, condescending, knee-jerky, or whatever. I'm not intentionally repeating anything I read somewhere else. I'm just thinking about my own experience with free software, and then writing what I think. I do genuinely think that there are two different costs for software-- the cost to the programmer and the cost to the user. The two costs have no relation to one another. I agree that you and the original author are both talking about the cost to the programmer when you say that "free software" is not really free, in that the programmer bears an opportunity cost, as you described earlier. That's true. You, the original author, and I all agree on that point. Where we disagree, I think, is about whether that cost is important. I think that proprietary and free software have roughly the same cost to the programmer, i.e. it takes just as long, just as much effort, to write code, regardless of whether you're getting paid. Since the cost to the programmer is the same for both, it's not a distinguishing feature of free software. If he just means that there is a cost to create all software, it's an obvious conclusion. I don't think I've ever heard anyone claim otherwise, i.e. that free software is created without time and effort by programmers. That's why I don't find the original argument compelling.