The main point of the article and you seem to be missing: freedom has intrinsic value.
Personally I don't care if you voted in the last election, or if you ever traveled abroad. But I do care very much about the rights that I have and allow me to vote or exercise free movement.
I also don't care if you are interested in modifying the source code of your operating system or the driver of your printer, but I do care very much about having a world where these things are possible.
The article is trying to exactly show that "Free Software" is like this, focusing on keeping the intrinsic value of having software that can be freely read, distributed and modified - even when it does not translate in more utility value, a.k.a better software.
>The main point of the article and you seem to be missing: freedom has intrinsic value.
And not everyone agrees with that, or that the value is enough to forgo the other things.
>I also don't care if you are interested in modifying the source code of your operating system or the driver of your printer, but I do care very much about having a world where these things are possible.
YOU do. Someone who just wants their printer to work would probably place much more value on that, than if the driver were open. Remember, one of the main themes of the article is whether software with "freedom" is worth more than software with usability or features.
>The article is trying to exactly show that "Free Software" is like this, focusing on keeping the intrinsic value of having software that can be freely read, distributed and modified - even when it does not translate in more utility value, a.k.a better software.
And many people disagree. If it doesn't do what it needs to do, then the software isn't of much value, even if it's libre.
