On Wed, 1 Oct 2008, Justin Krejci wrote:

>> Apparently, the FreeBSD supporters make a big issue of it, but really 
>> all Stallman is doing is saying that he doesn't recommend FreeBSD for 
>> that reason.  If they want him to recommend it, they'll have to change 
>> it. It's not that he is doing something wrong.  His thing is to promote 
>> free software, and he can do that better by not recommending FreeBSD. 
>> He isn't attacking FreeBSD, he's just not recommending it.
>
> Agreed; however RMS's own software suggests to users that they 
> could/should use non-free software since gcc and emacs have Windows, 
> Solaris, etc binary files, source patches, etc. The general problem as 
> outlined by Theo (once you read past the personal attacks) is that RMS 
> is not so holy and dedicated to his own cause as he claims thru words 
> and thru actions and is labeled a hypocrite.


Stallman used to do all of his development work on a proprietary UNIX 
system, eventually replacing everything but the kernel.  I think he has to 
allow us to move a step at a time toward his position, just as he moved a 
step at a time to get there.

This was an interesting thread and I did learn a few things from it even 
though I've been reading about Stallman, etc., for a long time now. 
There's always something new.

I hope many TCLUGers will come out for Stallman's talk.  Maybe we can meet 
somewhere afterward.

Mike