Christopher Dimech via Gcc <gcc@gcc.gnu.org>:
> The commercial use of free software is our hope, not our fear. When people
> at IBM began to come to free software, wanting to recommend it and use it,
> and maybe distribute it themselves or encourage other people to distribute
> it for them, we did not criticise them for not being non-profit virtuous
> enough, or said "we are suspicious of you", let alone threatening them.
Actually, some of us did *exactly* those things late in the last century.
One of the challenges I faced in my early famous years was persuading
the hacker culture as a whole to treat the profit-centered parts of the
economy as allies rather than enemies.
I won't say that a *majority* of us were resistent to this, but I
did have to work hard on the problem for a while, between 1997
and about 2003.
--
<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/";>Eric S. Raymond</a>
