“For a while it seemed as if the free software community was
treading water by improving automatic configuration tools and
device support, fighting ridiculous legal issues, and arguing over
tools instead of concentrating on its original goal of providing
free replacements for proprietary programs. But quietly, in the
background, a number of important programs have begun to bring
‘proprietary functionality’ to free software. Here are eight free
software desktop applications that could change the balance of
power between Windows and GNU/Linux by replacing proprietary
software with free code…”