A culture of the free

I love free stuff. I got a free chai latte from Panera the other day. I think it may have been more delicious than the usual chai latte. :) You can also get free stuff off craigslist..sometimes it needs some work, but you can get lucky. And it's awesome that people post their stuff and go through the trouble of contacting receivers and setting up meetings instead of just throwing things out. This is great.

Along with free physical stuff, I love free software. LaTeX is awesome for writing reports, and there's multiple free environments out there for it. I recently downloaded TeXnic Center, which is great for learning (it has buttons for common commands so you don't need to look them up). Pidgin for chat. OpenOffice (though at the moment I have no need for it). Wesnoth.

I like that these things are possible because there are people willing to give up their time to create them and share them with others. Maybe they just wanted them for themselves...but once they had it, they recognized that it would take them minimal effort to share it. And then others helped them build their 'product' (I hate to call it that since it's not sold) up.

I love the culture of 'free' things for students; I love Autodesk for making virtually all their software available to students. The concept of site licenses is great, too, but ultimately comes out of your pocket in tuition and other charges. I mean free, direct, from the company.

They have a point. You have no (or little) money as a student; you're not going to purchase a $300 software package, much less a $1000 one, even if you want the software. But, give it to you for free, you get 'hooked'. No, that's a bad choice of words. Accustomed is better. You become accustomed. Once you do have money, you don't look for a better option; you stick with the one you know how to use. Awesome long-term business sense.

So, producers of free software: I salute you! Purveyors of free goods: I salute you as well!