Free Hardware or Free Software?

There seems to be a theory that in 10-20 years either hardware will be free and software will cost money, or software will be free and hardware will cost money. The idea is not whether software or hardware will be worthless, but that the progression of business will have their eggs in one basket.

Now the idea that hardware will be free and software will cost money may seem outrageous. I mean, how could something that costs money to reproduce (hardware) be free while something that is relatively free to reproduce (software), not to mention that thousands of people are willing to create it for free, would cost money? But if Microsoft and Sun Microsystems had their way this would be the case. They would be willing to give away free hardware if it would mean that they could charge regular subscription fees for software.

That is not the way I see it progressing. I believe that all software will eventually be free, and hardware will (still) cost money. The free software / open source community is continually gaining momentum, ant it is just a matter of time that all software will evolve to be free. The future I see is one in which software and improvements on software is distributed as freely as speech.

However, I still see corporations like Microsoft and Sun Microsystems putting their effort into pulling the pendulum in their direction. It is up to us to keep this from happening.