Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!WHEATIES.AI.MIT.EDU!rms
From: rms@WHEATIES.AI.MIT.EDU (Richard Stallman)
Newsgroups: gnu.gcc
Subject: More confusion on GNU copying conditions
Message-ID: <8811150000.AA01027@sugar-bombs.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 15 Nov 88 00:00:22 GMT
References: <1052@accelerator.eng.ohio-state.edu>
Sender: daemon@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
Distribution: gnu
Organization: GNUs Not Usenet
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    One way to get bummed out is to read ``Free Software Foundation'' and
    blithely assume that free means unfettered here.

I am not a libertarian.  I believe we have obligations to society in
general, and one of these is to let people copy and share the software
that we write.

Just because something could be described as a kind of freedom doesn't
mean I am in favor of it.  For example, I am not in favor of the
"freedom" to punch people, to burn their books, or to stop them from
copying software, except when someone has done something horribly
bad to deserve it.

Since I am not a pacifist, I work actively to prevent those destructive
activities.  The GNU copying conditions are one way I do this.

Therefore, with GNU you are unfettered as long as you aren't trying to
put fetters on everyone else.  If you are trying to put fetters on the
sharing of some software, then in some cases some GNU software will be
unavailable to your project.  This functions successfully as an
incentive for computer companies to pay to develop free software.

      In fact all it seems
    to mean is "costing no money"

No, GNU is only tangentially related to the question of how much money
anything costs.