rms@UUNET.UU.NET (Richard STALLMAN) (03/24/89)
We are just hard working software jocks...
I'd sympathize more if you had chosen a better cause to work hard for.
Right now you are putting most of your hard work into getting Apple
more money to pay laywers to sue me some day. It might seem to you that
this aspect of your job is a minor side-effect, but it is very important
from my point of view.
I'm sure you can find a company to work for that is not likely to be a
look-and-feel plaintiff.
if you think
that ignoring/rejecting us is somehow going to cause Apple to change its
corporate policies you are living in a fantasyland.
If it gets you to quit your job and post a letter at your office
saying why (with a copy to Sculley), it might start to have such an
effect. If you move to a company that uses some other brand of machines
then the problem you are now complaining about will cease to trouble you.
So I guess GNU is freeware/copyleft/etc/etc as long as we all do what
Stallman or the GNU-nixs want. Great attitude.
Free software means that each person or company can decide what
changes to install and what version to distribute. Should I be the
only one in the world who does not have this freedom?
Is there more to GNU's hatred of Apple than some misguided philisophical
beliefs?
If not for my philosophical beliefs, there would not be a GCC for you
to port; they are the reason I work on GNU.
GNU is becoming very successful, but Apple, Lotus, etc. might still
stop us by making free software illegal. It shouldn't come as a
surprise that I use every legitimate means I can find to oppose them
and to call public attention to the danger they present. I urge
everyone to boycott Apple: don't buy their machines, and certainly
don't develop software for them. If I want to persuade, I had better
start by presenting a good example.