Russ Allbery dijo [Mon, Jul 13, 2026 at 12:16:46PM -0700]:
Thus, to me the reason to prefer (strongly) copyleft software is not
about getting "better" software.
(...)
Originally, one of the big appeals of GNU software is that it was *good
software*, which was also copyleft. In fact, one of the original arguments
for copyleft is that it would create a virtuous circle of development by
forcing new work to also be free software. That was a quality argument. A
lot of people started using that software because it was high quality and
then got curious about how that was done and became believers in the
underlying philosophical structure as well. GNU coreutils continues
following this model to this day, and I think quite successfully.
Right. My memories of how using Solaris' version of what we call
“coreutils” and then switching to the great GNU coreutils, with a more
flexible syntax (positional freedom, yay!) and compatible (but greatly
enhanced) capabilities... Felt like a great liberation.
In fact, my first experience with Unix-style commands was still in MS-DOS,
during my BBS days, with the MKS Toolkit. If GNU coreutils was an
improvement over Solaris', it was a day-and-night difference WRT MS-DOS'
