Comment by mwcampbell

I think that's a very simplistic view of ethics. Most things are not that black and white. Proprietary licensing is the most successful funding model we've found so far for software. And that funding doesn't just make some people rich (though it certainly does that); it also pays for lots of developers to do things that often don't get done in less well-funded projects. Yes, some vendors abuse the power that proprietary licensing gives them, but not all do. So I think this specific issue is a lot less clear-cut than you and other free-software advocates make it out to be.