Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new

Nicolas Pitre
2002-10-21T17:50:02Z

On Mon, 21 Oct 2002, Richard Stallman wrote:

> He is not entitled to control how others judge him. Nobody is
> entitled to that. The "freedom not to be judged" would mean the power
> to shut off debate about your actions.

True.

Now please just understand that people are not entitled to agree with you or
follow your advice.

As you just demonstrated above you can't disconnect "freedom" and "power".

To have the freedom to use free software you need the power to do so.

Of course people have the power to ignore you, but it's their freedom to do
so.

Aren't we making circles here?

Richard, please, stop making a fool of yourself. The only power behind the
GPL is actual code. If it wasn't because of the existence of the GNU/Linux
_code_ then Microsoft wouldn't care a whit about the GPL like it does now.

Therefore the only real lever you have against BitKeeper or whatever else is
to write a GPL equivalent. Until it happens please assume that those who
chose to use the tool they want are exercising their freedom since it was
made certain that no one is forced into using BK for Linux development
already.

Nicolas