Richard Stallman wrote:

quoted text
> When you buy a copy of a non-free program, you pay with your money and

> with your freedom.  You apparently don't assign much value to the

> freedom that you would give up.

I really didn't expect to get involved in this, but if I were to buy a

copy of Hy-Tek's Meet Manager

(http://www.hy-tekltd.com/swim/mm/index.html), I would not feel any less

free than when I started.  Granted, I would need to plunk down a

significant amount of coin for it, but having a copy of that software

would allow me to not only go forth and recoup my initial expenditure,

but turn a profit as well.  But since there is no free (or otherwise

non-proprietary) equivalent, your version of freedom means the swim meet

never happens.

How, pray tell, would purchasing and using this software reduce my

freedom, given that not only does it allow me to make money doing

something I find fun, but also enjoy summer weekends in the sun

watchings kids have fun, too?
Oh, and before you even consider it, running the meet by hand is not an

option when you're dealing with over 20 teams and nearly 2000 kids, so

don't even go there.