Re: Contributing LLVM.org patches to gud.el

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@xemacs.org>]

Richard Stallman writes:

 > These are not similar cases.  Neither Windows nor MacOS was
 > intended to push major GNU packages out of use.  What I see here
 > appears possibly to be exactly that.

And so what if it is?  You need to be bigger than to play tit-for-tat
on penny vs. dollar terms.[1]  If you want to fight LLVM, you need to
offer comparable value to your users.  You need to offer them a
strategy for software freedom that can win, that's what they want.

The rule David mentioned ("don't advantage non-GNU software over GNU
software") is strategically plausible.  It's your own rule.  It's easy
to explain and to follow.  On the other hand, refusing patches to
gud.el on the basis "we're under attack" is arbitrary: software
freedom has been under attack for at least 40 years, maybe more.
Nothing important has changed.  The same strategies as ever are
appropriate here.

More-disappointed-than-usual-ly y'rs,
The Loyal Opposition


Footnotes: 
[1]  If there's somebody out there with the resources to push a major
GNU package out of use, they need a *lot* of resources just to
overcome the natural inertia of installed base.  The little you can do
to hurt them is so small even an tax accountant wouldn't notice it.

The single exception is to take a page out of your own book and offer
the world GPLed software with the same features that non-GPLed code
offers.  But you've ruled that out.