When Free Software Isn't Better :: Benjamin Mako Hill

By emphasizing the power of collaborative development and "distributed peer review," open source approaches seem to have very little to say about why one should use, or contribute to, the vast majority of free software projects. Because the purported benefits of collaboration cannot be realized when there is no collaboration, the vast majority of free development projects are at no technical advantage with respect to a proprietary competitor.

For free software advocates, these same projects are each seen as important successes. Because every piece of free software respects its users' freedom, advocates of software freedom argue that each piece of free software begins with an inherent ethical advantage over proprietary competitors -- even a more featureful one.