Re: GNU/Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario

Richard M. Stallman
2005-12-12T00:33:09Z

At any rate, Stallman needs to in the next GPL incorporate
capitalist provisions which will allow FOSS to become a self sustaining
model.

The GNU General Public License was developed in the US, and follows
the principles that the US proclaims, which include doing business.
That is how I came to the conclusion that selling copies is one of the
things that free software must permit for every user.

However, freedom and community are more fundamental than economics.
The primary goal of the GNU GPL is to defend the freedom of all users,
particularly the freedom to cooperate. Business questions are
secondary.

Fortunately, we need not to do anything to enable free software to
"become self-sustaining", because it is already sustaining itself just
fine. If and when we see real problems, rather than speculation
about problems, we might have a reason to try to solve them.

But we could not make radical changes in the GNU GPL, even if we
wanted to. It would violate the commitment stated in section 9 of the