One of the favorite arguments for free software is that it avoids lock-in to a particular manufacturer’s products. Something similar happens due to choice of programming language, though, which accounts for the sometimes-baffling project rivalries in the free software world.

At the time of writing, there are three hundred and twenty three distributions being tracked on distrowatch.com. This is the world of choice, and it's a world made possible by free and open source software.

The FSF is launching a new advocacy campaign, and we'd love to have you involved. One of the most important tasks for us at FSF is to help foster the understanding that free software is crucial to a free society, and that citizens should switch to free software at home and in their own work, for freedom's sake.

In a world running on software, you have an important choice between having more control over your computer or acceptance of the status quo. It is a choice between contributing to a growing community...

"Look through a list available packages for any free OS and you’ll find a sometimes bewildering choice of browsers, mail readers, editors, desktops and tetris-clones available. Despite this many will just blindly install the first one they’ve heard of. Is this a good policy? What good is all this choice if we don’t use it and what are those choices? ..."

The wide variety of useful, free software programs that are now available is made possible by the contributions of thousands of volunteers from around the world. While many of these free programs are created to replace proprietary programs or to solve a developer's particular needs, each and every free program can be part of a greater goal -- the creation of a fully free software environment.

The question was recently asked by none other than the Free Software Foundation Latest News about Free Software Foundation, which then published its list of the highest-priority free software projects.

In our earlier article, "Facts and Friction on Open Source and Free Software" we have explained where "Open Source" is coming from and what is its relation to Free Software and the Free Software Foundation that represents it.

"...Free software is software that gives you the user the freedom to share, study and modify it. We call this free software because the user is free. To use free software is to make a political and ethical choice asserting the right to learn, and share what we learn with others. Free software has become the foundation of a learning society where we share our knowledge in a way that others can build upon and enjoy..."