Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley July 2007 Issue June 10, 2007 The Best Things in Life Are Free Free. Like many computer users, I love the notion of free software. I’ll trade a few bells and whistles for free, and I’m guessing so will you. I use free software on a daily basis. I edit Web pages with Nvu (http://www.nvu.com/), create “plain text” documents in jEdit (http://www.jedit.org/), and browse the Web using Firefox (http://www.mozilla.org/). Some of the biggest names in technology sponsor free software projects, including Apple, Google, IBM, and Sun. Admittedly, an “anti-Microsoft” bias motivates some of the developers involved in free software. The companies sponsoring free software projects are also interested in reducing the influence of Microsoft and its ubiquitous Office suite of applications. My decision to use free software isn’t philosophical or political: I’ve found that some features I want are actually better in free software. If you don’t want to pay the ever...
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