> Think about this scenario in the world for which the FSF strives: you find > that somebody's created a really nice program, but the developer is charging > a large sum for it. You simply search for one of the millions of mirrors that > have sprung up to redistribute software, and download the program from there. > There would be absolutely no market for software, because it would all > be...free.
I would gladly pay someone to develop useful software, no matter where I downloaded it from. If I like the software and wanted to support its continued growth I would go back to the original developer and pay them. Sure, everyone won't pay but then again not everyone's paying for their copy of a proprietary program either. There are other ways of going about this as well: Crowd funding is one option. In this way the developer is paid upfront and since the public's money is being used to fund the development, then the software should really belong to the public and be Free. In fact, crowd sourcing is a little bit safer than the traditional way of doing business: If someone's going into business developing a program there is no guarantee that they will be successful. With the crowd funding model the public gets to decide if they like the developer's idea by funding it in advance. Compare the alternative: You set up a company, and go through all of this work and expense, only to find out that it's a complete flop. Crowd funding eliminates one of the risks associated with the traditional way of doing business. These are just some ideas. Others in this thread have mentioned others. You're really only limited by your imagination. So your logic is flawed: Controlling the distribution and modification of software is not a prerequisite. The only thing it's a prerequisite is having power over people to keep them divided and helpless, which is exactly the thing that the free software movement is working to stop.
