people will feel that software is a commodity rather than a specialized product that requires a lot of hard work and brainpower to properly develop Even considering myself a OS defender, I kinda have to agree with your friend, no some time ago, before european patent directive were rejected I was talking about them with some of my friends about how software like vlc or filezilla _could_ dissapear because of them. Their response was "bah, I don't mind, some other program will eventually appear" ... I felt a little frustated, most people think developing software is think about it, nap your fingers and it's done, be it freely available or commercial or whatever. I guess it's some kind of "educational" fault, education the average Joe lacks.