Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2008/09/20/software-freedom-day.html

Today is International Software Freedom Day. I plan to spend the whole
day writing as much Free Software as I can get done. I have read about
lots of educational events teaching people how to use and install Free
Software, and those sound great. I am glad to read stories about how
well the day is being spent by many, and I can only hope to have
contributed as much as people who spend the day, for example, teaching
kids to use GNU/Linux.

What troubles me, though, is the some events today are sponsored by
companies that produce proprietary software. I notice that even the
official Software Freedom Day site lists various proprietary (or
semi-proprietary) software companies as sponsors. Indeed, I declined an
invitation to an event sponsored and hosted by a proprietary software
company.

Today is about saying no to proprietary software, at
least for one day. We live in the real world, of course, and some days
we have to be willing to set our political beliefs aside to negotiate
with proprietary software companies. But, on Software Freedom Day, I
hope that our community will send a message to proprietary (or
semi-proprietary) software companies that we reject user subjugation and
favor software freedom instead.