Over the last decade, free software developers have been repeatedly tempted by development tools that offer the ability to build free software more efficiently or powerfully.

The only cost, we are told, is that the tools themselves are nonfree or run as network services with code we cannot see, copy, or run ourselves. In their decisions to use these tools and services -- services such as BitKeeper, SourceForge, Google Code and GitHub -- free software developers have made "ends-justify-the-means" decisions that trade away the freedom of both their developer communities and their users.