Everyone should keep in mind that the whole story about the "world without
proprietary software" is just a theoretical consideration by now.
I think it's sensible to claim that programmers can live and survive in such
a world, but things are very complex and I hate people ignoring complexity of
problems; in fact, we just don't know.
RMS sold copies of his emacs some decades ago, but this would probably not
work today, at least not in this way. Who would buy from RMS when he can
easily download a copy for free?
There is this argument that programming is not the only thing a programmer
can make money with; support is also a financial source etc.
This is true but it misses the point.
The question is: would programming be profitable anymore? And not: can
programmers find another way to get money.
One can summarize:
Free software can cost money, but no one has to pay if he doesn't want to.
Someone else can redistribute the software without charge; your neighbour can
give you the software; everything legal and just fine.
So the important question is:
Does the system work if no one is forced to pay in order to get the software
he likes?
If no:
can the system work with programmers getting money only from different things
than programming?
I don't know what the answer is.
Of course we know that free software can exist - many great examples proved
this very well.
But the question of a world containing _only_ free software is another thing.
