Canonical is looking into selling proprietary software like Adobe's Photoshop and Apple's iTunes within its distribution, Ubuntu. This would undoubtedly be helpful for certain end users wanting to switch to Linux, but is it good for free software in the long run?

Someone on the Ubuntu forums started an interesting thread today asking, "Can you manage to use only free software on your pc?"  It got me thinking about my dependency on proprietary software, and whether I'd ever really be able to get it out of my life entirely.

As part of my interview with Dean Drako of Barracuda Networks, he mentioned to me some survey work Barracuda has done. Barracuda talked to 228 enterprise customers and asked what advantages open source has over proprietary software, and vice versa.
The answers were a bit surprising.

A recent official post on the Ubuntu Forums asks users to complete a survey with the applications they would like to see in upcoming version of Ubuntu...

Ubuntu Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope final release on April 23rd, 2009. whats new in it? There is some revolutionary changes. Introducing Ext4 Filesystem, Cloud computing etc in it.

I really don’t get it how people can continue pirating proprietary software like some Adobe products (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.) when there are quality, Free Software alternatives like the Gimp or Inkscape.

"...They base it on practical values only and they take for granted that proprietary software subjugating users is legitimate; whereas I say, and we in the Free Software movement say, that users are entitled to freedom and that proprietary software is a social problem and we're aiming to correct that problem, put an end to that problem..."

"No matter how glib and sarcastic the proprietor, proprietary software denies users the freedoms to inspect, share, and modify the program. Users of Adobe’s proprietary Creative Suite software recently discovered that the program communicates over the network with a machine apparently owned by Omniture, a company that tracks web usage..."

Open source is cheaper than proprietary software, right? In the Data Center Decisions 2008 Purchasing Intentions Survey, lower cost was the top reason cited for converting from proprietary to open source software. And lower cost appears to be a primary incentive for Linux adoption that has fueled the rapid growth of open source in general and of Linux in particular.