Can someone just kill this thread PLEASE....only a few posts were
actually good, the rest is filling my inbox !!!!
Jason Dixon wrote:
On Dec 15, 2007, at 6:00 PM, Gilles Chehade wrote:
On Sat, Dec 15, 2007 at 04:36:51PM -0500, Richard Stallman wrote:
I know of at least four companies I've worked with/for that *rely* on
gcc and that would switch to Linux/BSD if gcc was not available on
Windows.
I am surprised by this statement, because in general I don't expect
that very many users would switch to a different operating system just
to use GCC. Nonetheless, I would be interested in talking with them
to see what they say about this.
What you expect (conveniently) is far from what happens to be reality.
In the real world, people need their work done and will take the
necessary
steps to do so. If work involves cross compilation, as an example, and
you
provide them with a free compiler (as in gratis) that does that job
ok, it
will be used. If Linux is a prerequisite to this and that you provide
them
for free (as in gratis), they will install it. When you write code to
make
gcc work on windows and endorse it, you tell them that there is no
need to
switch to Linux to get the work done.
You are doing precisely what you blame on BSD, except that we provide
just
a set of Makefiles, and that you actually wrote code to make sure
projects
will run on a proprietary system and will be used by a broader public.
And no, you will not get to talk to the people I worked with. It is
not of
any interest for me to send them the average troll when they do not
care a
tiny bit about discussing FSF/GPL and/or BSD philosophy. Live with it,
you
do encourage people to use proprietary systems by providing them the
tools
to get their work done without having to ever touch a free system.
Richard Stallman is like the wife of a drunk. He is an enabler. Until
he comes to this realization and cuts the ties, no progress will be made.
---
Jason Dixon
DixonGroup Consulting
http://www.dixongroup.net
