The one thing that sets America apart from the other western democracies is the average American's belief in the value of personal freedom. To Americans, freedom is not just one of many values that must be protected. It is the value. While Canadian politicians regularly get away with arguing that personal freedom must be balanced with other important social projects, Americans believe freedom should not be compromised for any reason. Simply put, Americans understand that freedom and commercial success go hand in hand.
Freedom gives consumers an infinite choice of products, services, and suppliers.
The most effective way to enhance freedom in an increasingly technology-dependent society is to ensure that the technology we depend on is transparent to its users. Open source is the best single example of the power and benefits of transparent technology, but in truth, open source is not a technology. Rather, it is a different way of approaching the development process. Educational programs, scientific research, public policy debate, and other fields can move forward by following the same model of collaboration that has been used so successfully in developing open source and free software.