Instead of responding to things that might be factually inaccurate, let me just save time and reframe the debate between ESR and RMS. ESR thinks that open sour

Instead of responding to things that might be factually inaccurate, let me just save time and reframe the debate between ESR and RMS. ESR thinks that open source makes good business sense since open source is better than closed source. Computing is something that extends our ability to get things done, but isn't an end in itself. We need to be pragmatic about what businesses want, and how the business world works in order to perform our role of helping people do business. RMS doesn't care so much about what the business world wants or the fact that open-source is indeed better. He sees hacking and computing as one of the greatest achievments of mankind. Because it's a great achievement of mankind (like writing, or alphabets, or language itself) he thinks that it should be made available to everyone, and never closed off. In other words, for the people who live in it, spending their lives working on it and in it, software is culture. It's not just an application that you use like a word processor. And in the hacker culture, there needs to be a free flow of ideas like there is in the scientific community. This is reflected in the different licenses. The GPL "restricts" people from trying to close off one of the greatest achievements of human kind for the sake of some people who want to earn some more money off of it. The BSD-style licenses consider themselves more practical in that they allow for better commercial exploitation by eventually imposing restrictions. This is why Apple is so heavily involved in converting FreeBSD away from GPL code Currently I think it's about 50% GPL and OpenBSD is more like 60%. They plan to replace the GPL code with BSD licensed code so they don't have to contribute to the project eventually. Clearly some code isn't the equivalent of Shakespearean drama, and it won't matter that humanity is deprived of it. Microsoft word comes to mind. But for the really amazing software, the software that involves the cutting edge free flowing of ideas, and I would argue that the linux kernel falls into this category, GPL gives it the ability to serve as a lasting monument to human ingenuity, as well as a way of transmitting culture. It's no coincidence that the linux kernel powers nearly all web servers, smartphones and supercomputers.