What GCC and RMS did (and I suspect their goal was all along) was to change the Overton Window [1] of acceptability for open source.
Remember this was still the time that Solaris was not open source, and Microsoft was borging competitors . It was not definitely the Visual-Studio-is-open-source time.<p>By creating a hard line, and building a compelling alternative to proprietary compilers, he introduced a seed of change in the minds of young programmers at that time .... All of whom are senior management now and share a belief that things like Protocol Buffers should be open source.<p>In fact, its interesting that Android is inducing this change all over again (not Linux). Its a viable answer to &quot;its not as good as an iPhone,why should I buy it&quot;.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Overton_window" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Overton_window</a>