GCC unplugged

Well, there's the case we were just discussing: RMS shifted from a strict 'no
non-FSF-copyrighted code in GCC' to allowing it for ecj; he shifted from a 'no writing out
internals' to allowing it for link-time optimizations... he's not completely dogmatic: if the
choice is between useful free software that incorporates stuff copyrighted by other people or
makes things easy for GPL violations, and between free software that lags behind and is
outcompeted by other stuff, he has a track record of not taking the route that will kill the
free software.

You just have to convince him that this will happen unless he bends, which is kind of hard.

(Part of this is probably the perfectly normal pride-in-project: nobody wants to see something
they started get thrashed by something else if it can be avoided.)