Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!toad.com!gnu
From: gnu@toad.com
Newsgroups: gnu.gcc
Subject: Free [Software] Foundation
Message-ID: <8906040445.AA04908@hop.toad.com>
Date: 4 Jun 89 04:45:38 GMT
References: <1107@mailrus.cc.umich.edu>
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Apple is free to use, modify, and distribute GCC, and I see no
evidence of FSF wishing to modify the GNU Public License to prevent
them.  FSF just wants Apple to have to do it all alone -- without help
from the supposed friends of FSF -- because Apple is actively working
in court to prevent the Foundation from doing what it is chartered to
do.

A lot of people think that FSF is there to provide them great software
for free.  This is not true.  FSF is there to demonstrate that freedom
allows and encourages people to produce great software.  The freedom
comes first, not the software.

Peter Honeyman would like to use FSF software without the politics.
I can understand that.  I'd like to use Peter's software without
the politics, but AT&T won't give me the source -- seems they have
a political position about that.

The people who wrote the GNU software that you get for free, were
inspired by the idea that it would always remain free.  The reason
that brilliant programmers wrote that stuff was because they knew it
would be used and learned from and improved by anyone who wants to.
There exists plenty of excellent software that isn't GNU copylefted;
if you happen to like the GNU software better, spend a moment to think
about why you like it and how it came to exist.  Ideals that attract
the caliber of people who are writing the GNU system are worth further
exploration, whether or not you agree with them.

	John Gilmore