Email Comment: Support for free software
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[Email comment, received on 4/16/2016, at 11:10AM ET]
Free software benefits government, and it benefits the government's people. The mission of government is to organize society for the freedom and well-being of the people. Proprietary, non-free software tramples the freedom of users; this is a fundamental social problem that government should be opposed to. Freedom means having control over your own life. If you use a program to carry out activities in your life, your freedom depends on your having control over the program. You deserve to have control over the programs you use, and all the more so when you use them for something important in your life.
As such, government needs to insist on free software in its own computing for the sake of its computational sovereignty. All users deserve control over their computing, but government has a responsibility to the people to maintain control over the computing it does on their behalf. Most government activities now depend on computing, and its control over those activities depends on its control over that computing.
Graydon Hall