Essay RFC delayed.

[Richard Stallman]

I've described the Free Software movement and the Open Source movement
as two political parties competing for support in our community.  That
doesn't mean we have to behave towards each other like American
political candidates.

I am very disappoined with Eric for trying to minimize what the Free
Software movement has done and can do--calling us a failure, despite
the great success we have had and continue to have.  He should not
need to do this, since no one doubts that he has made a contribution.

Eric implicitly assumes that we need the support of business above
all.  I disagree; what we need, above all, for a strong and durable
community of freedom is many individuals who are willing to make great
effort, sometimes even sacrifice, to hold on to their freedom.
Business support is nice, too; but we need a community of idealistic
people to keep business on the right track.

In June I gave a speech to a group of executives (often CIOs) from the
largest French companies and government agencies.  I focused on
freedom, as usual, because the organizers expected me to.  (I had
suggested Eric as an alternate speaker for this audience, but the
organizers said they wanted my idealistic approach.)  The response was
quite positive.  Thus, even executives can care about freedom.

But the ideology of business works to discourage this, so in general
it might be most effective to use Eric's approach with business
executives, while those of us who want to spread the word about
freedom focus on the individual users as our audience.