>>28There's no point in trying to convert people who are too addicted to the power of proprietary software; they deserve everything they get.
Don't forget that users of proprietary software also put others at risk. A big part of malicious software is to spy more than its owner.
Many schools are adopting Chromebooks and making them mandatory. The students are not allowed to tamper with the software or use their own computer. Since these computers have almost no storage capacity, everything is network based which means that both the school and Google know everything that the student does at all times. And don't forget that these schools often have a firewall which blocks helpful websites such as Wikipedia(the reasoning being that it's "uncited"), which not having your own computer often makes it hard to circumvent with a proxy. This teaches kids that they are not allowed to use "non-approved" sources, which is very nonacademic. Not to mention that this filter is also meant to censor unwanted political opinions(think of the far-left/SJW agenda). There are many cases where schools make the usage of proprietary software mandatory.
Employers are like this too. Most of them use a Gmail-based web system, and other features such as Docs, Calendar, and Drive. This means that Google knows where you work, what you say to everyone in your company, what you are doing, what you are working on, and even stores your files. In order to remain profitable, businesses often require presence on social media as well as proprietary platforms(including mobile).
Government is also like this. It's frequent for government services to require using Windows or Internet-Explorer only software which not only presents a massive inconvenience(since Windows is a crude operating system) but also an ethical dilemma. And let's not forget proprietary Javascript. It's common to hear about security breeches with the personal information of government employees as well as those who use government services to be leaked to foreign nations, which leads to a crisis of identity theft and espionage. The people who are responsible for securing these services are clearly either incompetent or simply don't care.
And this is not even mentioning government-issued spying programs such as the NSA which is known to actively push software makers into adding backdoors to their software. This includes harvesting meta data from Windows registrations, phone calls, social media databases, phone-homing from proprietary software, DRM systems, or just random web traffic such as this.
Everyone in my family but me has a smartphone. Even the kids barely out of diapers. They're the type that do all of their communication through Facebook and Google+ and they are constantly trying to get me to join them. They also take pictures of me and upload them. They even made accounts for me. It's a nightmare. I'm not the owner of those services, but this is one case where proprietary software affects a third party.
Proprietary software is not only a fool's dilemma but a global crisis. It's our problem too. As long as stupid people rule the world, they will push us into their stupidity. Don't neglect the damage they have caused. We have to either stand up to them or attempt to educate them. This is what people like Stallman aim to achieve.
I negotiated with my school and they let me use my own laptop. I was the only person in my grade who did. It gave me a massive advantage. Part of what made me a programmer was making programs to help me in school. While the other kids were on their overpriced, oversized, and outdated graphing calculators, I had a modern and fast computer along with a bundle of quality software to help me. The other kids never got this opportunity. They were neglected, and their education was tarnished as a result. I could also emulate their calculators except for exams where I just borrowed one. Those things are such a scam. In my company, I'm the only one that doesn't run either Windows or MacOS. That's pretty sad. I try to suggest reasonable alternatives to their proprietary software. Sometimes they listen. I don't want to push them too hard since that would be counterproductive. But I have made some progress which is nice. Not to mention trying to steer them away from C/PHP/PERL/JAVA and all that mayhem. Then there's the government. We have more control over the weather than the government. I won't make this package overly political, but this is a case where we have to avoid the the problem rather than solving it. But that's just me. I know some people are interested in political activism.