Intel's enthusiasm for open source is gathering speed: now it is endorsing professional Linux certifications, snubbing the old Microsoft certification program.

"... When the name is GNU, you should hear, «This system exists because of people who care about freedom. Join us, value your freedom, and together we can preserve it.» [...] Those companies that suppress the GNU name from their distributions are some of the worst offenders in not only distributing proprietary software, but also openly developing, promoting, and encouraging its proliferation.

"... Open source is the term that was used in 1998 by people who liked our free software, but didn't like seeing as the ethical, political issues. They preferred to forget about the deeper aspects--the question of respecting the user's freedom--and focus only on the practical benefits that they got from having the freedom.

"Conference by Richard M. Stallman at the First International Conference Free Knowledge, Free Technology - Education for a free information society in Barcelona (Spain), 15 July 2008, on the production and sharing of free educational and training materials about Free Software..."

"...It is a failure of the GNU project and of the free software movement that there is so much emphasis on monolithic distributions and binary package distributions. It is a failure of the GNU project and the free software movement that one so often encounters distros that offer to not install source trees and even offer to not install development environments.

Letter is a Request to allow avoiding usage of proprietary software in curriculum.
To use Nasm instead of TASM, When syllabus does not say about TASM or any other software for that matter. In a college with its campus (internet) network is available only in GNU.

"...The current generation of network services or Software as a Service can provide advantages over traditional, locally installed software in ease of deployment, collaboration, and data aggregation. Many users have begun to rely on such services in preference to software provisioned by themselves or their organizations.

One thing I hate above almost anything else is when a vendor tells you what you can and can't do with your software. That drives me bonkers. Sure, they wrote it and it's theirs to do with as they wish, but once they sell/give it to me, it's mine to do with as I see fit - within the confines of the software itself.