If they really offer the same hackability - including the freedom to resell your hacked versions for any price - then they are Free Software.

Proprietary tools do NOT, in point of fact, offer you the same 'hackability.' Or else they'd be Free Software.

Freedom!

Proprietary tools exist at the whim of their creators - if they decide to discontinue a product, you're facing a dead-end. In particular, with proprietary tools that require activiation/validation (both initial, and throughout the time you're using them) you're at the mercy of the creators running the activation servers - if they shut these down, your tools suddenly stop working, or you'll be unable to reinstall them if you need to. Open Source tools aren't bound to a single "creator" - if the original project team are no longer interested in supporting or developing a tool, new people can take over. OS projects only die when *nobody* is interested in them any more - and even then, they can come back to life as soon as someone does take an interest.

Proprietary software means, fundamentally, that you don't control what it does; you can't study the source code, or change it.

Proprietary software means, fundamentally, that you don't control what it does; you can't study the source code, or change it.

To be truly 'hackable' you need to allow access to the source code.