Re: one-paragraph comments on s/w freedom being more important than tech niftiness

[Jean Louis]

* Mark Galassi <mark@galassi.org> [2020-05-10 19:37]:
> 
> Dear GNU folk,
> 
> Long ago I had a conversation with a fellow long-time GNU developer.  We
> were talking about how we had come upon free software in the 1980s and
> early 1990s.
> 
> We were discussing how sometimes we had felt exhilerated by, for
> example, the coming of gcc, or gcc-2, which were so technically
> excellent.
> 
> And then we both commented that we had eventually reached the conclusion
> that the usefulness of gcc, or the linux kernel, or other great
> products, had come mostly because of the freedom that comes with s/w,
> rather than the fact that at the moment it is the coolest s/w around.
> 
> Years latere we then noticed that, for example, gcc had played leapfrog
> with various proprietary compilers, passing in and out of the top
> performance slot (that's not true anymore).  But sticking with depending
> on tools that offer freedom turns out to be both ethical and deeply
> strategic in the long run.

That is great that freedom is in the first place.

Now even more needed!

Jean