> I am trying to explain to you that they are one and the same. BUUUUUULLSHIT!
The driving factor behind free software is a principle- that users should have control over their computing. Is their any particular reason for this? No. Not really. It is a principle. It has no real objective justification- but the majority of people (I hope) would accept this as being right in and of itself. If you reject all principled arguments, you reject basically every argument ever- including your slavish adoration of security (though it puzzles me why you then go on to defend Windows), as well as your very right to life. Why should you not be shot in the face? Again, that too is based on principle. Principles matter, and should not just be rejected out of hand. If we abandon the principle of people not being arbitrarily killed, then society would essentially collapse. Principles are valid in and of themselves simply because people instinctively accept them. If the vast majority accept a given principle, then it is completely valid to base an argument on it. Privacy and security, on the other hand (which I think you'll find also boil down to a matter of principle) are features. People want privacy and security, and, due to the nature of free software and the fact that it evolves to meet its users needs (as opposed to those of Microsoft), those features are commonplace in free software. They're nice perks, and they constitute yet another reason to choose free software. But those features are not there for the sake of the features themselves- they are there because of the respect for the needs of the user inherent in free software. Why? Because principle. Please try to understand.
