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Comment by Rexxar | Hacker News Reader

In the RMS world you are not good if you support some free software. You have to support them exclusively

From the link:

    The basic point of the free software movement is that 
    nonfree software is unjust and should not exist.

Personally, I completely disagree with this.

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That's not true. He for example thinks it's a good thing that Steam is available on Linux, as it makes it viable for people to come into the Linux world and from there, they usually end up using more free software. Of course, he doesn't like Steam either, and would like to get rid of it eventually, but it's the lesser of two evils for the time being.

Isn't that why he also supported Gnash to replace Flash: as a form of bridge?

Aside: Interesting that Apple's insistence on not supporting Flash became a bigger influence. Albeit motivated more by battery drain than ideology.

Care to explain why you disagree ? Be warned, I'm on the opposite side of yours : proprietary software is a byproduct of competition on material grounds :-)

Think of it like free speech and see if you still disagree.

Well yes. I support free speech, and also support the ability of people to promise to keep secrets.

If you don't think that is a fair analogy, then maybe you can start by explaining how the heck the free-speech to free software analogy works in the first place.

The analogy is that non-free software is akin to censorship. Free speech for everybody is the ideal, in reality we have yet to achieve that (see for example China), and approving of censorship is a step backwards. Free software for everyone is the ideal, we have not reached that goal, and approving of non-free software hinders progress.

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