Stallman is wrong that proprietary software hurts users; that's the essence of his critique. It's sad that so much software has sailed under the GPL flag of co

Stallman is wrong that proprietary software hurts users; that's the essence of his critique. It's sad that so much software has sailed under the GPL flag of convenience, simply because it existed and could avoid license bikeshedding. Most of the efforts embodied in Linux or even GCC are not motivated by RMS's political spin. What's really unfortunate about his noise is that it has consumed the air that should be supporting more fundamental topics - especially the nature of protocols (which must be free, documented and unencumbered in order to really qualify as protocols.) The IETF really embodies the philosophy that has made the net a success.