ESR: 'We Don't Need the GPL Anymore' (O'ReillyNet)

ESR: 'We Don't Need the GPL Anymore' (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Jul 6, 2005 19:38 UTC (Wed) by GreyWizard (subscriber, #1026)
In reply to: ESR: 'We Don't Need the GPL Anymore' (O'ReillyNet) by rqosa
Parent article: ESR: 'We Don't Need the GPL Anymore' (O'ReillyNet)

The only irreplaceable GNU software is GCC, binutils, and GDB.

"Only"? That's an awfully big "only".

Even so, you've missed the point. At the time Stallman began all of the examples you cited as free implementations of standard Unix userland stuff either didn't exist or did so under a legal cloud. BusyBox and uClibc are particularly bad examples because they were created to deal with technical challenges in embedded systems, not to displace effective components like Bash and glibc everywhere. When the Free Software Foundation created the those packages they were necessary because no other free software alternative was available.

We have a complete free operating system today because Stallman and the Free Software Foundation set out to create one decades ago. That there are now many alternatives does not diminish that achievement -- indeed it makes the community as a whole richer.

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