On Wed, 1 Oct 2008, Max Shinn wrote:

>> 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 is _far_ from hypocritical.  There was a discussion about this 
> just a little while ago on emacs-devel.  RMS wanted to get rid of the 
> Windows/Solaris/whatever port of emacs, but there was a strong 
> objection. The conclusion was that having these ports of GNU software 
> helped lead people to freedom, instead of making the system all or 
> nothing.  That way people could use parts of the system, possibly fall 
> in love with the pieces of software or their philosophies, and 
> eventually switch to GNU/Linux.  The ports also made life "bearable" for 
> Free Software lovers who were forced to use proprietary operating 
> systems for whatever reason.
>
> He may be an extremist, but he is _not_ a hypocrite.


I don't have very strong feelings about Stallman, the person, but I do 
have strong feelings about the goodness of some of his works, especially 
the Free Software concept.

So, there is a very tricky question that I have struggled with too: 
Should we make Windows versions of free software available?  I think maybe 
it is a good idea.  Many people are stuck on Windows at work.  For me 
Cygwin has been a godsend, but Cygwin is really not nearly as good as 
Linux.  One major difference is in slowness of directory listings -- super 
slow on Cygwin compared to Linux.  Things like "perl -pi -e exp" just 
don't work on Cygwin -- it has to make a .bak file.

So I think we should make things work on Windows, but not as well.  If 
someone wants to have a really good computing experience, they'll just 
have to dump Windows altogether.  Make people wait a few extra months for 
upgrades on Windows, stuff like that.  If Linux has no advantages, they 
won't make the switch.

Mike