Plenty of links to media coverage of Linux. The Postscript Programming Language Networking Personal Bookmarks Free Software is a passion with me, for a couple of reasons. Proprietary software stands in the way of getting things done. Proprietary software is built around the concept of copyrights. These copyrights protect the publisher, but often trample on the rights of users and programmers.
Patents are even worse.
I have been involved in several projects where lack of access to software became a major obstacle. Greater computing power is available through free software. I may have a bit to learn, but the power to do just about anything I want from a computer is probably available to me. Neither I, nor my school or government, need to spend thousands of dollars when the capacity is already there. On the contrary, Richard M. Stallman has proposed that a small tax would support an infrastructure to provide virtually everyone with the software power that we need.