Liberty in Software

Give me liberty, give me death, or give me liberty in death.

I just now put up a small improvement to a Python program that I made.  It made me think of something I think of almost daily: how great free software truly is.
The program linked to comes from now-deceased Crunchbang Linux (it has continuations), which is the distro I installed on my netbook when I got it from a friend. Eric S. Raymond, a man I respect and otherwise hold to a high esteem, recommends Ubuntu. I wouldn't - why? Because Ubuntu is derived from Debian (as is Crunchbang), but is not binary-compatible with Debian. So, for a general-purpose, reliable & mature (just celebrated its 23rd birthday) OS, I'd recommend Debian. If I were to install for myself, now, I'd probably choose Kali, another Debian derivative - just because of all the tools that come pre-installed. Doesn't really matter what distro you choose; but, unless you are already running a free/libre OS, or have pressing reasons not to, please, do choose one. You can always change later (my path has been Red Hat > Ubuntu > Crunchbang > Debian).