3 ms·

Don't get me wrong, I have a great deal of respect for the FSF, for what it does, and for what it stands for. I am even willing to put aside some practicality (

Don't get me wrong, I have a great deal of respect for the FSF, for what it does, and for what it stands for. I am even willing to put aside some practicality (as I stated above) in order to use Free software. But when I have a job to do, and the candle is burning at both ends, I simply can't afford to fiddle with config files. As an aside, I really admire RMS for sticking to his guns, especially after reading his biography. I don't appreciate the approach of "the Free way or the highway" (hah, no pun intended) because it's so uncompromising and shuns people like you and me from the "club". However, not a lot of people in this world can say they never compromised their ideology in the name of practicality, and I definitely admire that.

eropple 15y ago
GNU has taken money for proprietary-friendly licensing of GNU projects. Entirely within their rights, of course, but they have certainly compromised their ideology for practicality in the past.
- andrewaylett 15y ago
  I mostly agree with your second statement -- building GNU tools on a proprietary OS was pretty much the only way to get started, especially considering the ongoing state of HURD, although I wouldn't necessarily go so far as to call that "compromising". Can you give me a reference for the proprietary-friendly licensing? Depending on exactly how friendly you mean, I didn't think their contributor agreement allowed them to do that.