Z:gnu-www-ja-digital-inclusion-in-freedom--007ebb-We know that free software can/en

We know that free software can be developed because so much of it exists. There are thousands of useful free programs,18 and millions of users19 run the GNU/Linux20operating system. Thousands of programmers write useful free software as volunteers.21 Companies such as Red Hat, IBM, Oracle, and Google pay programmers to write free software. I do not know even approximately how many paid free software developers there are; studying the question would be useful. Alexandre Zapolsky of the free software business event Paris Capitale du Libre (http://www.paris-libre.org) said in 2007 that the free software companies of France had over 10,000 employees.