Out of necessity and as a means to an end, because nobody else sharing his philosophy is willing to do it.

> Out of necessity and as a means to an end, because nobody else sharing his philosophy is willing to do it.

I think that's a pretty striking description of failure in promoting an ideology.

Or at least his interpretation of that ideology.

I'd be really surprised if most of the people working on these marque GNU/FSF projects weren't happy with GPL/copyleft, at least for these "complete" programs (as opposed to libraries like the GPLed GNU Scientific Library).

> I think that's a pretty striking description of failure in promoting an ideology.

Are you actually saying you think the FSF have failed?

> Are you actually saying you think the FSF have failed?

I think the FSF has failed in making popular RMS's extremist exclusionary ideology which sees the eradication of non-Free software as a moral imperative, even at the cost of technological progress and of the utility of Free software for its technical, rather than ideological, functions.

I think the FSF has succeeded in using copyleft licensing to create a critical mass of Free Software which established well the pragmatic case for Free software, and -- because the pragmatic case for Free software has been so well made -- has demonstrated (entirely unintentionally) the conflict between (larger, AFAICT) group those whose goal is increased availability, utility, attractiveness, and use of Free software and the (smaller, again AFAICT) group whose goal is RMS's one of eradication of non-Free software and avoidance of Free software utility in producing/generating non-Free software.