GCC association with the FSF

Richard Kenner kenner@vlsi1.ultra.nyu.edu
Sun Apr 11 13:30:48 GMT 2021


> > When it comes to deciding the direction of a project like GCC - technical 
> > and otherwise - in my mind it primarily should be those actually involved 
> > and contributing.
> 
> GNU follows the general principle of the Free Software movement, that
> freedom for *users* is the priority.  Assigning *higher* importance to
> developers' preferences is *not* a position I share.

I think there's a difference between philosophy and practicality here.
Sure, the importance of work done by different developers, measured on
the scale of advancing the goals of the Free Software movement, is
different for each.  But what actually advances a project (which can
be viewed as "deciding [its] direction") is what work developers
choose to do, not the importance of each piece of work on that metric.
So I certainly agree with what you said above, but don't think that
changes the reality that it's ultimately what developers choose to
work on that most affects the direction of a project.


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