Free and open source software (FOSS) has roots in the ideals of academic freedom and the unimpeded exchange of information.

"Many of us in the Free Software community have a certain level of “activist” within us, pushing those around us towards the ideals that we cherish. Ideals such as freedom. Freedom of communication, freedom of data, freedom of choice. This March 26th is Document Freedom Day, another occasion where we can band together and help promote Open Document Standards..."

" The idea of open source is that allowing users to change and redistribute the software will make it more powerful and reliable. But this is not guaranteed. Developers of proprietary software are not necessarily incompetent. Sometimes they produce a program which is powerful and reliable, even though it does not respect the users’ freedom.

The free software community understands that free software gives the user more freedom than proprietary software. Proprietary software confines its users, prohibits them from making changes that would allow everyone to benefit, etc. Free software advocates (myself included) have a habit of claiming that using free (libre) software means the same thing as having freedom.

"...There is no compatibility between education and proprietary software, not at the ethical level. The source code and the methods of Free Software are part of human knowledge. The mission of every school is to disseminate human knowledge. Proprietary software is not part of human knowledge. It's secret, restricted knowledge, which schools are not allowed to disseminate.

Free software is simply software that respects our freedom -- our freedom to learn and understand the software we are using.

"Defenselessness is not the American Way. In the land of the free and the brave, developers defend their freedom with the GNU General Public License [...] The Free Software Movement was founded in 1984, but its inspiration comes from the ideals of 1776: freedom, community, and voluntary cooperation. This is what leads to free enterprise, to free speech, and to free software. "

"CHENNAI: Techies advocating free software on Sunday issued a rallying call to expand the “digital freedom struggle” as they celebrated the anniversary of the GNU/Linux project launched in 1984.

If free software is so commonplace, then why of all things should we celebrate its freedom? Isn't that as absurd as celebrating the freedom of your fridge to keep your milk fresh, or the freedom of your toaster to toast your toast?