I monitor a lot of technical blogs, to keep up with current events in Linux. Occasionally something really profound comes out. I especially like this paragraph from one of the AbiWord hackers.
the full article is
here
It is supposed to be an infrastructure that we as a society can build on. In no small part, it should be an enabler. It is supposed to do the hard things that we can't do individually, but are collectively achievable. Sometimes we need to do the right thing, even if the right thing isn't the cost-effective thing. To this end, government should sometimes be a check against the "free" market and sometimes a carrot that leads the market to the ends society desires.