Comment Re:I wonder what life would be without RMS (Score 1) 191
I wonder what life would be without RMS and GNU, especially GCC
PCC and TenDRA were both around at the same time as GCC. If GCC hadn't been in the right place at the right time, one of them would likely have taken over (hopefully TenDRA, it was a much nicer design). Actually, if TenDRA and ANDF had taken off, the Free Software ecosystem would probably be in a better place than it is now.
BSD systems are now pretty easy to keep GNU-free. I still use bash, but out of inertia rather than a conscious evaluation of alternatives (I'd probably pick zsh if I could be bothered to put the effort into switching). GNU binutils was lacking competitors for a while, but now the LLVM alternatives are a lot better. If GNU binutils hadn't been around then something like the ELF Toolchain Project would probably have matured (it died because it had no advantages relative to LLVM).
Yes, RMS is a pill... but without him, we likely would be paying by the hour for a cable set-top box to send "E-mails" with a "stamp fee" from our CompuServe accounts.
I have no idea what the connection is here. ISPs were happily providing Internet email on *BSD systems since the early '90s. Nothing Stallman has done made a difference there.