RMS Responds

RMS has written me with responses from a few of the comments associated with the RMS Speaks Against "Open" article I ran last week. Hit the link below to read his comments.

The first comment was from Chris Tyler who wrote "More than agreeing on "Open Source" vs. "Free", I think that we need to agree on a standard antonym describing the alternative". RMS responds "The antonym for free software is proprietary software.

Commercial software and free software are not contraries, because they talk about two different issues. Software is commercial if it is produced as a business activity; most commercial software is proprietary, but there is also commercial free software. For example, the GNU Ada compiler is commercial free software. With luck, soon Netscape Communicator will be commercial free software.

See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html for a list of categories of software and their definitions."

Second comment is from Chip Richards who wrote " I'm sorry, RMS has been trying to shove his [expletive deleted] LISP and the DEL key down my throat for the past fifteen years or so, and now this."

RMS responds "It is sad that he feels resentment of something that did not happen.

Writing a program involves making decisions, and they will not please everyone. But--unlike most software developers--I don't force my technical decisions on the users. My programs are all free software: if you don't like the way I wrote a program, you are not stuck with it--you are free to change it."