My position is probably the opposite of what most people said here: I don't value the (so called) "unix philosophy" but I think that free software is very important. Over the last few years I've been more and more disgruntled with "unix style" programs, preferring integration over modularity, features/abilities over "simplicity". But that's a more complicated and less interesting topic.

Software freedom, on the other hand, I think can't be reduced to what z3bra said:

(11-01-2019, 04:47 AM)z3bra Wrote: I now consider "opensource" as a huge plus when I look for a software, but not a hard requirement. Computers are only tools, so worrying about them is pointless.

Since computers are "only" tools, you should care who controls them, who has access and what it can affect. "Closed Source" software is an absurdity, historically speaking, limiting the rights and the abilities of the user. It also promotes a "class-thinking" in the word of computing, that of the programmers and non-programmers. This line should be fluid, the programmer shouldn't have to hide his/her "secrets" from the user, just as the user shouldn't be afraid to ever use a non-gui interface, or dare I say "program"!

Sadly I still use very little proprietary software, on my Laptop it's the wifi-driver, and from time to time teamspeak (which I hate, but my friends accept) and on my phone WhatsApp (which is the standard messaging system in Germany, sadly). There is no doubt that if I could replace these, that I would.

These three podcast episodes pushed me to a harder line on these issues, even though I was already strongly for Free Software before too: https://librelounge.org/episodes/episode...tware.html, https://librelounge.org/episodes/episode...usion.html, https://librelounge.org/episodes/episode...vancy.html maybe they can should others a different perspective too, other than what I'd like to call "false pragmatism".

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And an obligatory note, I always need to add: Most of these issues of these aren't Philosophies or Ideologies. The "unix philosophy" is more of a best practices (within a unix system, that's superfluous anyways). "Open Source" is a business plan, while "Free Software" probably comes closest to being part of a Philosophy, albeit not being a ideology (comprehensive world view). And as always, there's nothing worse than eclecticism. But that's just nitpicking.