Re: realplay.el interface with Real Player v. 1879

[Richard Stallman]

    > Many others aim to convince people to migrate to GNU/Linux, often by
    > forgetting about freedom as a goal.  That may be what you are doing
    > here.

    Free software somehow has to interact with the "real world",

I am just as aware of that as you are.  Where we may disagree is in
the goals we are trying to achieve in the real world.

                                                                 which -
    sadly - is dominated by proprietary software and file formats.

That is a social problem which we are trying to solve.

      A lot of
    people switched to free software after free office software became
    reliable in reading M$ office files.  I think the case with mplayer is
    similar.

I am sure that is true.  Where you and the GNU Project disagree is on
what conclusions follow.  I think that is because you and the GNU
Project disagree on goals and values.

If our goal were merely to make the GNU/Linux system as popular as
possible, it would be eminently rational to make that collection work
with non-free software.  You seem to seek that goal, so you recommend
a course of action which would reach it.

We are aiming for something much bigger than that: to bring about a
world in which _all_ software is free.  To get there will take a long
time.  To keep moving for a long time toward a goal, nothing is more
important than keeping the goal in focus.

To make our existing free software more popular by legitimizing some
non-free software would cover up the goal.  It would be self-defeating.

That is why the GNU Project has a policy of refusing to encourage the
use of any non-free software.  We refuse to seek popularity for our
existing free software by implying that non-free software is
acceptable.