Hello, A month ago or so, I expressed the idea of porting Linux (I thought of the kernel) to Win32 on the FSFE (Free Software Foundation Europe) mailing list, because I thought that that would broaden the acceptance of Free Software and therefore further the cause of Free Software.
The reaction showed me however, that most people at least on the FSFE mailing list oppose the idea of porting Free Software to a proprietary OS, and I also was told that RMS himself said something like: "don't improve a proprietary OS with Free Software, because people will associate the good tools with the OS instead of the Free Software movement". So, RMS's position is not only a formal one (against the name Win32), but a more fundamental one. He seems to fear that such ports would ultimately harm the Free Software movement, because it would make working on the proprietary OS more pleasurable. So, it is not so much a legal issue, but a philosophical and political one. I for myself am still undecided, and don't know if he is right (he was right about a lot of stuff in the Free Software field). Perhaps porting Debian to a proprietary OS will make more people acquainted with Free Software and ultimately help them to make the move to Free Software, but perhaps it will strengthen the position of the proprietary OS. I just thought I mention this here, since the concerns I heard so far seemed to be rather legal/practical. I sincerely hope not to start a flame war with this. - Josef
