Essay RFC delayed.

Richard Stallman rms at gnu.org
Tue Aug 24 04:45:54 UTC 1999


    > I believe more hackers would rather listen to Richard than to you, Eric.

    I disagree.  I think both of them are worth listening to.

I think there is no need to compare, because Eric and I mostly talk
about different things.

I think Eric has had some worthwhile and insightful things to say.
I've been impressed and persuaded by some of them.  Convincing
business with practical arguments can help our community.

However, Eric and the Open Source movement deliberately avoid the
issues that I focus on most: issues of principle.  They do not say
that we deserve freedom to share and change software, or urge people
to refuse to give up their freedom by accepting non-free software.

Convincing business with practical arguments can help our community,
but it won't inevitably help our community.  To keep corporate
involvement on the right track, developing free software and
documentation rather than selling proprietary material to us, we the
individuals in the community need to take a firm and principled stand.

Practical arguments are not enough.  We need to talk about freedom
also, and we need to do it more than just a little.





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