Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 17th Dec 2007 16:32 UTC, submitted by lmvaz
Richard Stallman sent a message to OpenBSD-Misc, explaining why he doesn't recommend OpenBSD. "From what I have heard, OpenBSD does not contain non-free software (though I am not sure whether it contains any non-free firmware blobs). However, its ports system does suggest non-free programs, or at least so I was told when I looked for some BSD variant that I could recommend. I therefore exercise my freedom of speech by not including OpenBSD in the list of systems that I recommend to the public." His mail started a huge thread (that's just page 1) and since then he's under a blast of messages from Theo de Raadt and the OpenBSD users. De Raadt replied: "Richard, you are wrong. You said very clearly in your interview that the ports tree contains non-free software. It does not. It is just a scaffold of Makefiles containing URLs, and an occasional patch here or there. You are just plain wrong. And you are not enough of a man to admit that you are wrong. I may be unfriendly at times, but you are a power-misusing hypocritical liar who attacks projects that try harder than any others to only make free software available. Shame on you."
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Member since:
2007-01-04
But it's just that; a suggestion. It's up to the user to take the suggestion just like they would any other suggestion. If they don't want to install non-free software, they won't, just as they probably wouldn't jump off a cliff if they were suggested to.
It's the user's freedom to make a decision based on the suggestions that he or she is given. They may have been convinced well enough never to run non-free software, so that no suggestion of non-free software will change that. RMS is now saying we shouldn't give them the freedom to choose what software they use, they should only run what RMS approves of.