Flippin Burgers (Score 1)

Hmmm... could it be possible, that this person is on student loans/scholarships, or just barely has enough money to pay tuition etc, or maybe they like to EAT while they attend school. There are a myriad of reasons why someone might not have a few hundred extra dollars around to toss on software. Do you have any idea how hard it is to work while going to school? Or maybe this person does work, but has to spend the money on rent, food, whatever. The point is that free software really helps some people, by shaving a few hundred dollars off the cost of the computer. Windows is $80. But can we stop there? Maybe you want a better OS... NT workstation is only $260 bucks. Plus, beyond the operating system someone might want a word processor, spreadsheet, etc. The full version of Office runs _$450_ these days. Can you buy just the word processor? Heck no! Compilers? Visual C++ is $50 bucks standard, _$500_ if you need professional. There is probably more (would IE be free if Netscape and others werent around?), but even with just this list, equipping standard software on a computer might easily cost more than the hardware.