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From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
To: lm@bitmover.com
CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, mark@mark.mielke.cc, billh@gnuppy.monkey.org,
       paul@clubi.ie, riel@conectiva.com.br, Hell.Surfers@cwctv.net
In-reply-to: <20030104222330.GA1386@work.bitmover.com> (message from Larry
	McVoy on Sat, 4 Jan 2003 14:23:30 -0800)
Subject: Re: Why is Nvidia given GPL'd code to use in closed source drivers?
Reply-to: rms@gnu.org
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Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2003 13:34:01 -0500
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    Linux is a copy of Unix.  There is very little new stuff in Linux.

This is no coincidence.  GNU/Linux parallels Unix because I chose that
design in 1983.  It is foolish to focus on innovation when you are
starting a race with a multi-year handicap.  The first task is to
catch up.

The primary purpose of GNU is the freedom to cooperate.  Innovation is
nice, but secondary.  We followed the design of Unix because that was
the most reliable way to produce a working portable system.  We made
it compatible with Unix so that many users could easily switch to it.
We deliberately avoided innovative approaches in many cases--the
noteworthy exception being the GNU Hurd.  (Perhaps that exception was
a bad decision.)

Although innovation is not our primary focus, there is a fair amount
of innovation in GNU packages.  GNU Emacs is better than any previous
Emacs.  (The first Emacs was another innovation in our community.)
GCC was the first portable truly optimizing compiler, and the first
optimizing compiler that supported debugging.  Autoconf was an
innovation in portability technology.  Looking elsewhere in our
community, Perl and Python seem to be innovative; the X Window System
was too.  There are surely more examples that I don't know of.

    You get the idea.  Sun makes more in 2 days than Red Hat makes all year.

This is very significant if money is your main goal.  Both GNU and
Linux exist because of people who have different priorities.

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