> From: Richard Stallman <[email protected]> > Cc: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], > [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] > Date: Sat, 09 Jan 2021 01:37:13 -0500 > > > You are saying those programs are breaking the law? > > > The GNU project policy is to not legitimizes non-free software, what > > the law says is irrelevant here. So I fail to see what law has to do > > with anything. > > I think there is a linguistic misunderstanding here. "Legitimate" can > mean "legitimate according to the law" or "legitimate according to > standards of right and wrong". I generally use it in the latter > sense, and I think you do too. Maybe Eli applied the first > interpretation.
We have a rule not to use "illegal" for anything that isn't a violation of the law, and we have that rule for a good reason. Why should we treat "legitimize" any differently? it has the same issue.
