Honestly, the last time I was working for (volunteering for, now they have paid employees) MSF was last summer. Then I had a job from late summer to early winter, and then school started in the new year. So I am coming back in as a member, pretty much the same as any other; my insider scoop is about the size of a teaspoon.

That said, I will offer my observations, since I was at the former Silva Lanes location, both in the House of Eternal Return and the adjacent rooms of the makerspace, yesterday and the day before that and the day before that (which is why it took so long to reply, I thank Max for jumping in with his thoughts in a more timely manner; I drafted this after only his first two emails).

In fact, he has addressed most of your questions, I think, except the one about 'ware/culture freedom (and I want to add to some of his answers).

First, I expect the price to go down as additional revenue flows for the 'space come online (if the history of Quelab and presumably other 'spaces nationwide are any indication, which I believe they will be). So perhaps sign up for a day pass (and see if you have a student ID somewhere, orientation is free and workshops are reduced with one; and of course signing up for a single cheap 1-credit-hour class at the Community College that you can switch to audit after signing up if you want gets you an ID) just to get all the prerequisites for constant access to the space besides the payment itself. Then wait for a need, for a rhetorical improved future state of disposable income, and/or for the price to go down and buy a month (or a year, for savings at the expense of needing to be able to dole out a lump sum) at a time.

I asked a co-founder (which is an actual title, I do not count as a founder; this person is a board member too) and the two floor managers about using free distributions specifically. Zane, the co-founder, said that there is already a computer dual-booted as Windows / Linux (he did not specify), and a couple of dedicated Linux (again, generically stated) machines planned for the near future.

When asked about transitioning over as the chances to find and switch to alternatives to the proprietary softwares currently being used (mostly in-house controllers for the commercial machines, like a jobs manager and print configuration utility for the small laser cutter, or Makerbot Desktop for the Replicator 2, but also workflow issues: the most painful was the use of CorelDraw for sending vectors to the cutter because

1. Corel Suite was already installed on that computer, even though one person at most is familiar with it and nobody is super comfortable with it, and
2. there is some weird behaviour with the aforementioned print configuration utility that makes it not play well with Inkscape (which I am basically comfortable/familiar with), but these issues seem not to arise with CorelDraw; they plan to get Creative Cloud [:(] to see what the sitch is for Illustrator (which the floor managers are comfortable/familiar with, although one, Amy, seemed to like what I had showed her of Inkscape).

), he was hesitant:

Besides the dual-booted box, they are running OSX (some version) on the old flatscreen iMacs, and Windows 10 on assorted boxen (some rather swanky). The justification behind this is that people with encounter 'what they are used to', so they can just jump right in and use them; but most people will be learning new skills at the makerspace anyway, and I would think in a majority of those cases at least one new software (like Cura, which they thankfully also have; Zane is well aware of the free software movement and subsequent spinoffs [free hardware, culture, design, and data], and is even involved with a business based around OpenDesk, and agrees that it shares much 'philosophy' with the Maker movement). Why not start fresh with a uniform interface to a standard set of open interoperable programs? There are established (but also in flux, in many cases) workflows and toolchains using only free software that are often used by makers (if you are willing to accept that as a real title).

Also, they want to make logins for members when they sign up, which will either have to be done on the fly or by a beleaguered employee, and while I hear Windows does have network-/sys-admin tools for this, and presumably Mac also, good luck getting them to work across the walls of the gardens. Not that it would be impossible, just unnecessarily annoying and fragile.
Additionally, if they need to add or swap out computers (if one breaks or is otherwise out of comission for any important length of time, for instance), they will have to use bolted on tools for reinstalling all the needed software or again, more essentially wasted person-hours, whereas the APT or comparable system when combined with local network caching perfectly fulfills this requirement in a well-integrated way.

Anyway, enough ranting to the preachers, the answer to the question of what is the makerspace's stance towards free software*, is: positive, but not dedicated due to baggage even at this early stage and in need of guidance either way (convinced they should commit or not, that is).

*I know the question of terminology has been beat to glue and resurrected over and over ad tedium, but what do you think about the phrase "users' rights"? Like human rights, in that some of them are 'native' (sometimes referred to as 'inalienable', despite repeated demonstrations of alienation), and can and should be expanded upon. User does not necessarily denote 'end-user' in this context.

-Arlo

PostScript: Other GNU/Linux related happenings at Ol' Silva -- the study of one of the main "characters" in the House of Eternal Return has a computer in it, and it runs LXDE - somewhat kiosked, because they really want you to play with the files / launchers on the desktop which contribute to the story and atmosphere, but Control-Alt-Delete opens the Task Manager or whatever LXDE calls it. About one of the said launchers - it opens the terminal emulator, but the normal commands do not work, and suggested commands work weirdly (it suggests 'help', which further suggests the commands 'something', 'something', and 'something'...presumably a work in progress or just intentional uselessness?), I suspect some clever alias usage.

Also, I told my friend's boyfriend, who I met the second day there, and who wanted to branch out from being a lifelong Macintosh user, about the GLUG - he seemed interested.