- You can learn things from reading the code.
- You can give copies to your friends.
- You can sell it.
- It runs on many platforms.
- You can modify it, improve it.
- You can develop in bazaar-style if you want to.
- You can give your improvements away, which is community building.
- You're not stuck in the deadly arms of a vendor.
- It invites you to transition from user to hacker.
- You can automate and script many tedious and boring tasks.
- More people can fix bugs.
- A lot of software is available at very low cost.
- Development decisions can be made in a democratic fashion.
- It brings more opportunities for certain benign forms of competition (between vendors or programmers).
- It makes some forms of harmful competition obsolete (program doesn't have to compete with program, everyone can use apache if they want to)
- It stimulates cooperation.
- It doesn't divide people by building walls of restriction between them, it's egalitarian.
- It's not presupposing an economic system (expl: non-free software is depending on private ownership of code).
- It's not cheating the prisoners' dilemma.
- It's not polluting the mindspace with lockean tentacles of control.
- Writing free software is a creative outlet for immediately improving the world - if you get frustrated with weltschmerz you can code free software and sleep better.
- Free software ensures openness of communication.
- Free software always allows file format compatibility.
- Free software can allow the worker to regain some control over her working environment.
- With free software, {Code is law} is a utopia rather than a dystopia.
- With free software, you don't have to be afraid of negative consequenses, should the company providing the code fold. The code is still available.
- Free software can evolve much faster than non-free software.
- With free software, there can be no spyware...
- ...nor trojans...
- ...nor disturbing EULAs...
- ...nor adware...
- ...nor annoying and scary registration...
- ...nor any other »feature« that's harmful to users, because they will be removed quickly.
- There's full insight into free software, honesty prevails.
- There's less duplication of effort. (We don't have to reinvent the wheel one zillion times)
- You don't have to spend precious resources on developing copy restriction schemes
- The power is decentralized — no central point of power.
- If the free software is developed on a voluntary basis, you can voice your opinions without fear of losing a job.
- You can fork it.
- The advantage of Free Software increases when more people uses it.
Help fill this out! Guidelines: It's got to be an advantage of free software (or open source) over non-free software in and of itself, not advantages of a particular system over another (e.g. Debian's advantages over Windows XP) or petty fights that plague the movements (free software vs open source, Apple vs Microsoft).