Re: [Savannah-hackers] savannah.gnu.org: submission of LumberMill

[Jaime E. Villate]

On Mon, Dec 03, 2001 at 07:11:09AM -0500, Robert Bushman wrote:
> On Mon, 3 Dec 2001, Jaime E. Villate wrote:
> 
> > Please make sure your programs work with either GCJ or other free
> > implementation of Java and then resubmit your project.

> Hi Jaime,
> 
> I think I'm just going to use SourceForge instead.
Sorry to hear that.

> I'm curious; my source code is Free. Why does it
> matter whether or not there is a Free method of
> executing it? How does it serve the objectives of
> the Free Software Foundation to restrict a new
> piece of Free source code from being published? Is
> it not possible to learn from source code without
> executing it?

It is frustrating having a piece of code that cannot be executed. And by
distributing Free Software that depends on non-free software, we would be
encouraging the use of non-free software. The FSF only accepts the use of
underlying non-free software when there is absolutely no alternative. For
instance, when the GNU/Linux system did not exist, we all had to start
developing free software over non-free platforms. But I don't think it is the
case with regards to Sun's JDK; substitutes exist, which perhaps are not as
technically as good, but they will never improve if we kept supporting JDK.

The other point is that in Savannah it is required that
GPL-compatible licenses be used, to allow packages to work well among each
other, without legal conflicts and in a self-suficient manner. We don't want
to depend on proprietary tools that some people are not allowed to use.

Anyway, I'm not a member of the FSF; I'm just a volunteer trying to follow
the rules set up by the FSF. If you'd like to have a better answer to your
question, you should ask somebody at the FSF.

Best regards,
Jaime