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He even touches that directly:

> The existence of LLVM is a terrible setback for our community precisely because it is not copylefted and can be used as the basis for nonfree compilers -- so that all contribution to LLVM directly helps proprietary software as much as it helps us.

... which pretty much is the answer to your last question.




He assumes that helping proprietary software is a bad thing (well, more accurately, he asserts this axiomatically). However, proprietary software can have many benefits. Many if not most successful software businesses have made great contributions to open-source and the development of free software. I know for a fact that a huge amount of linux development is driven by for-profit companies. If a company can make a profit, make an excellent product, and pay it forward by contributing to open projects as well, it sounds like a win-win to me. This might violate RMS's axiom that only free software is good, but as Hitchens says, "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."


You're right, I had missed some of the implications of that statement. Basically, he considers the additional free software created to be a negative rather than a positive, because it gives an even bigger benefit to proprietary software.




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