An open letter to Richard M. Stallman
RMS doesn't care about "open source", something he will gladly remind you of if you use that phrase in his presence.<p>His position in this matter is long-standing and consistent with his principles. That's how you have to understand him: a man of principles surrounded by enemies.<p>Look at OS X, why does it use such an ancient version of Bash? Why is apple so afraid of the GPLv3? It's not just an oversight. The GPLv3 provides strong patent protection for its users and Apple uses patents as a weapon. An example of this powerful weapon was Apple's conspiracy to suppress wages by threatening companies who poached Apple employees with patent suits.<p>Imagine you make a tool and someone proposes making a change to that tool that would be potentially useful to slavers, people who enslave other people. This makes you hesitate. Pointing out that people already use similar tools for slavery probably wouldn't make you change your mind.