Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!AI.MIT.EDU!rms
From: rms@AI.MIT.EDU
Newsgroups: gnu.gcc
Subject: Some people won't use GCC
Message-ID: <8906051911.AA00256@sugar-bombs.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 5 Jun 89 19:11:09 GMT
References: <4818@uoregon.uoregon.edu>
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	... But you don't need a license to do
	that.  It's called PUBLIC DOMAIN.

	But, you claim, then people could snarf it up, make proprietary
	changes, sell it, restrict access to binaries.

	Yes.  But you would always be able to compete with that because
	your intent was to make it freely available.

This is small consolation for the disadvantages.  If I made GCC public
domain, companies would port GCC to their machines and would call the
machine descriptions proprietary.  As a result, only a few machines
would be supported in our distribution.

In other words, I would have much less leverage to persuade anyone
else who starts with free GNU software to contribute to the development
of free software.

Even on the machines supported in our distribution, 99% of the users
would get their copies from vendors who would not tell them that we
exist as an alternative.

I could perhaps have advanced the state of the art this way, but as
for advancing the cause of **freedom to share for all the users**, it
would be a failure.  That would feel futile.  This is why I do not
develop public domain software.

I am sad if, as a result, some of you don't wish to join in the
project.  However, I will make do.  I'd rather go in the right
direction with less help than the wrong direction with more help.