Should Software Development Programs be Free?

Russia has put out some of the best programmers the world has to offer.. One of the reasons is they can check out programming languages or any other software for free.. Shouldn't US make the same available to those who want to learn?

Should Software Development Programs be Free?
There are a lot of free software development programs available to people in the US.





The Linux OS has the most examples of free software with OS's like


Ubuntu: http://www.ubuntu.com/ where including the OS every single software in it is free from photoshop like programs to C, C++, Python, and Java IDE's.





Eclispe: http://www.eclipse.org/ is a free C, Java, and PHP IDE for windows.





Bloodshed http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html is a free Delphi,Pascal, C/C++ compiler.





Microsoft has express version of their IDEs: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/express...


that let people create programs for free. Heres a list of those progrrams:





Visual Web Developer express edition


Visual C# express edition


Visual Basic express edition


Visual C++ express edition


SQL Server express edition


Visual J# express edition





These express editions are not trials.





Here's a list of free compilers and interpreters I've found while answering this question:





http://www.thefreecountry.com/compilers/...





I don't think that the US gov made all of these things available but nonetheless they are still available in the US.
Reply:The US also "has put out some of the best programmers the world has to offer," so I'm not sure what the country of origin has to do with anything.





"One of the reasons is they can check out programming languages or any other software for free"





I don't know anything about Russian programming practices, so I can't comment on them. But here in the US, there is nothing stopping people from creating programs from completely free development tools. In terms of development costs and effort, the cost of the program is almost no consideration to the end product. It's just not that big of a deal.





Lastly, it's not the governments job to make software development tools. We have a thriving technology industry that doesn't need any help finding developers or development tools.