will.hillno...@gmail.com wrote:
That's a good point, but surely you would prefer and recommend a search engine that used and shared free software, perhaps something that could be used cooperatively? If all other things were equal, we should alway prefer free software.
In the context of a search engine, we're talking about a service that does not do your computing for you; this is not SaaSS (Service as a Software Substitute). So whether that service uses free software is of interest to that service's owners but not the users. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/network-services-arent-free-or-nonfree.html discusses this.
