Re: Bitkeeper outrage, old and new

Richard Stallman
2002-10-22T03:06:47Z

Nobody's evil or stupid or naive just because they make a certain
licensing choice.

It is a stretch to conclude anything about the general attitude or
character of a person from one action, so I would not say the people
who distribute non-free software are "evil people" in a general sense.
I will say they have done one thing that is evil: distributing a
non-free program.

Non-free software licenses are designed to divide and dominate the
users, denying them the basic freedoms for software users. That's
what makes them non-free, and that is what makes it wrong. Non-free
software is a social problem, one that we need to solve if computer
users are to have freedom.

There are many different ways people make money; some are ethical
while others involve mistreating others. If we accept "making a
living" as a valid excuse to mistreat people, we will be mistreated
constantly. There comes a time when we have to say that we are not
impressed by the argument that "We need to do this to people in order
to make a living."